


Next House Over

by clearinghouse



Series: Ham Common [3]
Category: Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bunny Wears a Dress, Crime and Cricket, Fluff, Ham Common, Lawn Bowls, M/M, Painting, Romance, Snuggling, playing cards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 16:44:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11165910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clearinghouse/pseuds/clearinghouse
Summary: Bunny is hiding a secret in his room, and asks his flatmate not to look at the secret until it’s ready. Though Bunny’s trust in him binds him to inaction, Raffles grows intensely curious about what Bunny has in store. Meanwhile, Raffles has yet to decide how he will confess his feelings for his friend in three words, and whether he’s earned the right to do so.(Follows the events ofNights in Ham Common.)





	1. A Small Bed

To greet the early morning (days in the common prefer to start early) by opening my eyes to the sight of messy, light-coloured hair and a pale-skinned back peeking out from under full-body pyjamas gives me a pleasure that is difficult to give proper justice to, unless one has known the pleasure for oneself. When I wake to discover that I have fallen asleep beside the golden man who is nestled so comfortably in his own bed while I too am in it, it is not rarely that a gratified and thankful smile rises to my lips. 

It is a delight like a twist in the heart to know that my friend welcomes me to be here. When he is conscious, he is similarly as calm and contented as this, though there is also a charming energy to him that makes him able to join me in the best and worst of adventures; when he sleeps, he is doubly full of that same serenity with which he soothes my otherwise restless spirit during the day. There before me was a rabbit nestled safely in his burrow, sleeping with such security alongside the fox that was so warmly invited in.

“What a cute rabbit he is,” I said quietly to myself, half-aware that I had done so, and it would be an exceedingly fair criticism to accuse me of melodramatics when I stole a quick pet along his back.

Sometimes, Bunny wakes in time to see this good effect that his companionship has wrought. On average, he smiles, too. If my morning manner is made especially dotty by a rush of sentiment, then in his good humour he might laugh, and I am compelled to join in with him while I gently kiss whatever patch of him is in my reach. It’s his character and soul that drive me to do it. He’s kindhearted, and chummy, and dependable as a rock.

The dear man before me remained asleep, which gave me the opportunity to make for myself a better plan than simply staring at him like the besotted fool that I am. For the moment, I pulled my arm back to me, and I poised myself with my elbows bearing my weight on the mattress, and breathed in the air and light of his chamber. This was his room; there were the closed doors of his wardrobe; there was his bureau, which was beside his washstand. Each piece of furniture and clothing within view was his. The unbelievable aspect of these things was that I was welcome to share in them all, not as a temporary guest or visitor, but as one whose intrusion is always invited.

Though my own room a hall away is a positive mess, his room is not. I try to keep it how I found it. 

By the way, that closed wardrobe of his will be of unusual importance shortly. But I’ll return to that piece in its time. 

The bed is not large. That is to say, it is a good enough length and width for one person of Bunny size. I’m of a different build; no mattress but a king’s would be suitable for me. When the two of us together are combined, even a large bed becomes a small one. If that fact puts me closer to my man, then that’s not necessarily a point against it, though I sometimes think on whether or not Bunny would enjoy better a bed meant for two.

Of course I know that Bunny was still asleep. That didn’t stop from me from turning to him again. I went a step further than that: my hand climbed onto his shoulder, and held him at that point. The feel of his heat and muscle in my palm through the thin material of his combinations fascinated me. Our little romance is still new enough that the bodily feeling of him is not as familiar to me as his light snoring (though I should relay that he was not snoring presently). There was a quiet strength hidden underneath his soft shell. Country life (if our existence in the common can be called that) made him to be a touch leaner than he was in earlier days.

There was a small debate in my mind which lasted a few seconds, regarding whether I should let my friend sleep in peace. Then, while his half-blanketed form was making itself irresistibly appealing to so many of my senses, a marvellous plan came to me. It was an exciting idea that played itself in images in my brain. Immediately, I decided which direction I should take. I moved to him so that my chest was against his back, and whispered into the one ear that I could see. “Bunny,” I entreated, in a soothing tone that was sleepier than I really was, “Bunny.”

Stubborn little thing that he is, he didn’t yet rouse. 

“Bunny, I’ve had a stroke of genius,” I said. “As soon as you’re up, I’m going to dress you. I’ll get you a clean shirt, and trousers, and fresh undergarments. It will be fair that way, you see? You undressed the two of us at night; I think that I ought to correct at least one day’s imbalance, and dress us both for the day.”

No response came my way. A gentle shake of his shoulder, and still his pillow interested him more than me. 

I whispered his name again, to no avail. It began to occur to me that he could still be in a deep sleep resulting from last night’s amusements, though that wasn’t very typical of him, even if it was predictably typical of me. Out of curiosity, I leaned over him to have a look at his face, with the relaxed lines and the closed eyes. But despite all that, there was a devil of a laughing smile before me!

“Really, AJ!” Bunny snickered. He rotated to rest on his back, and opened his reflective eyes, which stared up at me. Mirthful happiness and liveliness transformed his features, enchanting me. “You want to dress me?” he asked, letting his incredulity set his tone. “As a manservant would?” His laughter settled down into something more temperate. “That’s sweet, AJ, but you don’t have to do that for me.”

“It’s not a matter of having to do it,” I retorted, yet really my mouth was moving ahead of me. I was distracted by how gorgeous he was in the morning light, and so close to me. His form, clothed only in one long undergarment, was glowing. I wanted to caress him, and never get out of bed.

Shyly, he rubbed his lip. “All right. If you’d like to dress me, then I won’t argue, but—” He paused, only to ask bashfully, “not yet? I wouldn’t be opposed to staying in bed another few minutes.”

“Of course. You wish to go on sleeping?” At his very reasonable request, my excitement to clothe him settled down. “I’ll own it was brusque of me to wake you for so silly a whim.”

“No, no, that’s not it. I was already up, anyway.”

I was startled by this. He had seemed so peaceful, so at rest.

“It’s just that—well, I’d rather stay here with you.” His hands rose at a slow, reverent speed to rest on my chest, which was raised above him. His fingers stroked along the curves and angles of my body. My hard muscles brought a mesmerized look to his boyish face. “Sometimes, I still can’t believe this,” he whispered. “You’ve always meant so much to me, AJ. I never thought that I could mean something to you, too. But, I’ve just woken up next to you, as if we were husband and wife, as if this is how close we’ve always been, and—and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank you properly for it.”

His earnestness stunned me. Before I was able to answer him, he went on speaking. I finally understood that the glistening I saw in his eyes wasn’t on account of his beauty alone.

“You’ve certainly been a right good sport about it all!” he declared, suddenly, and he tagged a laugh-like huff to the end of that sentence. “You told me that this was new territory to you, and I haven’t forgotten that, but the things we’ve been getting up to at night—the things you’ve let me get away with—but I guess I should have known that there’s nothing in this world too fantastic for you to let me try?” His cheeks tinged with colour, and he waved the rest of his precious words away. “Anyway,” he cleared his throat, “has it all been all right with you? Is there anything I could do differently?”

It is a pleasure and pain, how much he cares about me. “Bunny, you mustn’t be so nervous.”

“But—”

I didn’t want to hear of any more doubts from him, not if I could remedy them. “Do you think that I would be all but naked in bed with you in this indulgent fashion if I was discontent in any way?” I asked. 

He looked to the side. “I don’t know, exactly.”

What a reaction! “You don’t know?” So taken aback I was, I might as well have just been stabbed.

In the span of a couple of seconds, to compensate for the damper on my spirits, his own improved dramatically. He blared his fair sunlight at me directly. “Oh, AJ, don’t take it badly! I don’t mean any insult by it.” The point was strong enough to for him to reaffirm it by shaking me once. “Far from that. You are very kind to me. My worry is that you wouldn’t tell me if something was going wrong. If I’m going too quickly, or too slow, you should know that you can tell me. It’s like you to act to spare my feelings when there’s a difficulty, but believe me, I’d want to know about it, so I can make it better. Or, there might be a question you’ve had on your mind, that I haven’t answered?”

His honest concern was deeply touching, though it was very unnecessary. “There’s not a bit of that,” I assured him with confidence. “Of course, even I am aware that there’s a lot you’ve yet to introduce me to, Bunny, but I’ve got no questions about it. Learning by experience has worked well for me so far, and more agreeable, I daresay.”

“Ah.” The slight and indirect reference to activities yet to be introduced caught his attention, and it wouldn’t have been amiss for him to ask me what activity or two I was purporting to allude to. Nonetheless, he had the air of stowing it away for a better time, and returning to more pressing themes. “And, I’m more than able and glad to lead, if that’s still what you’d like best—and I’m really happy if I can do so—but it could be that you’ve grown tired of that?”

“No, no! I’d much rather follow your designs, Bunny. By all means, you run the show. You’re a marvellous director!”

Bunny bowed his head briefly. “Well, so says the marvellous audience,” he replied softly, out of what seemed to be ruthless refusal to accept any exchange of praise that goes unilaterally in his single direction.

“You may be the first director who ever preferred to disguise his successes as the doing of his admirer.” To this light-minded claim, he had no rebuttal except for a curious expression of a mix of pleasure and guilt. “Besides,” I added, by way of letting him off easily, “I haven’t got the map that you’ve got.”

“Eh?” He grinned helplessly. “Should I ask what you mean by that, the map?”

“It sounds as if you already know it. Yes, the map, for your splendid realm,” I said. “That map in that delightful head of yours that tells you where your mouth and the hands ought to go to fry my brain on a pan.” Villainously, upon witnessing his startled reaction, I pursued that line. “Haven’t you got a map? You do seem to know precisely where to apply the pretty lips and tongue and fingers to make your fine specimen of a bird moan and sing a somewhat embarrassing little tune that he wouldn’t have believed he had in him.”

“Oh, forget it!” My dear companion’s blush overpowered him, and I was pleased that my clever reassurance was so distinctly pleasing to him. “AJ—come here!” He pulled my chest down to his, and held me. He is a force of nature; I was straightaway awash with his affectionate warmth. It was the perfect epitome of embraces between lifelong friends—between lovers. He had not embraced his pillow with as much verve as he was holding me. Our loosely-clothed legs were against one another’s, with an outrageous and delicious intimacy that might be said to cross even more lines of modern sensibility that our nighttime actions did. “AJ, what a knave you are,” Bunny said with feeling. “Even so, thank you. I love you. Fine specimen of a bird, or not,” he laughed lightly, “I’d love you in any case.”

A thick swallow clogged my airways. I could do nothing but hold him in turn. How was it that my best friend was able to tear my iron nerves apart so easily?

Whenever he spoke those three words, they carried with them the silent weight of a hardship that I could never forget. For years, Bunny had cradled those words in his breast. Long before I had ever suspected him of finer feelings where his closest male companion was concerned, he had made it his second nature to conceal how true his faithful soul was to mine. Years of unreciprocated love had been his lot. How could I ever confess anything of value to him in reply, I thought to myself, when I had not at all earned the right as he had?

He was right about my inclination toward letting him dictate the newest course of our many-sided relationship. Ever since my recent induction into Bunny’s sultry sphere, I had been growing only a little lax about my former self-imposed regimen of letting Bunny show me the way. The fact is, Bunny is the expert in the realm of love between males, and, frankly, I was not a little glad that he has such a perfect opportunity to be the expert for once in our partnership. 

As for me, it was all quite new, and superbly unexpected. 

In my early Albany days, not once did I imagine that it was a man, not a woman, who would lay hold my soul. Even when I first took Bunny into my confidence as my best business associate, and I learned to share everything with him and him alone, it was not at all self-evident what complete happiness was possible between two partners in crime. For the two of us, who could have easily been the saving or the ruin of each other, who very sincerely lived and died by one another, I did not fathom anything other than a bond better than brotherhood.

And, during those long years while I lived in this painful ignorance, Bunny’s heart, body, and soul all belonged to me. What a thing for a chap to learn in hindsight! And I once fancied myself clever! 

It was all the more reason, then, to make it up for lost time. To reassure and encourage him at every turn—to strive to be more like the good man he always thought me to be—became my life’s mission, once the truth of his feelings (and of my own) were revealed to me. I would take pains to remind and convince him that he could be fully open with me, and now that there was no cause for him to fear my knowing his most startling secrets.

By this time, we had already spent many nights in the pursuit of gently exploring new ways to caress and touch one another. My bedroom had come to know his presence, as his had come to anticipate mine. It must be evident by now that I continued to follow his direction, but really, the truth is more complicated than that: slowly, piece by piece, I was learning elements of his art for myself. I studied him, and learned how to kiss, and how to caress. His likes and dislikes, I tallied to myself as an obsession. I took pride in finding more and more ways to reciprocate his affections.

Although, my greatest pride was in the small role I had in helping Bunny quietly develop his confidence, by playing at being the student to his teacher. I could see it in the firm way he held himself, and the increasingly decisive manner with which he spoke. Somehow, my acceptance was helping him to accept himself; and my sincere pleasure in his company was bringing out the best in him. 

At last, Bunny released me, and I released him. “All right, we can get ourselves dressed,” he said. “It’s not as if I could keep you here with me all day.”

I hummed. “Now there’s a fascinating thought.”

He laughed. “AJ!”

“Oh, you’re not for it, I take it?” 

“That’s not the point! Have you already forgotten that you wanted to dress me?”

“Ah,” I sighed dramatically, “to have to decide between that and a day spent abed with you!”

“No, we are not going to spend the day in bed.” This was a delight to hear. My fellow was pleasantly adamant. Though I didn’t say it, I was impressed. “We will get up and make ourselves good enough to join Mrs Fisher for breakfast,” he insisted. 

To spare him the embarrassment of direct appreciation of his decisiveness, I played up my willingness to follow his direction with a flippant style. “If that is what we must to do, then, who am I to argue?” Bearing this irreverent attitude of mine with some bravado, I began my crawl to the edge of the bed, and found my way to an upright position. I pulled on the nearest dressing gown to secure for myself some warmth while I crossed the room. “When it comes to decisions like this, you know best, Bunny. I’ve never been led astray before; you are the wise master to whom this humble apprentice defers—”

“Wait! Don’t open that!”

That stopped me, cleanly.

He had cut me off in the middle of my reaching to spread apart the doors of his wardrobe. His hands fumbled together, and it seemed that his cheek was being bitten on the inside. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather put my own clothes on, if that’s fine by you.”

Now, having never taken a bullet, myself, I had heard the experience described by other Albany men of distinctly colourful histories to be a more pronounced version of what happens when one mistakes to cut oneself with a razor, or a knife, or a sheet of paper: there’s the numbing shock, during which one is too busy marvelling at what has just occurred to be bothered about the pain, and then there’s the pain. This was what it was like to be abruptly turned down by my dear man. But he was free to do as he wished, and my request had been an absurd one; I had to fight to not show my reaction, and to accept his rejection.

My poor reaction must have come through anyway, because Bunny’s face turned. He leapt in his bed, curling the sheets that afforded him an extra measure of modesty. In general he tended towards timidity, and was remarkably keen to shield his body, when we were apart, and the lighting was good. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t good of me. The wardrobe—I had forgotten. There’s,” a pause of reluctance punctured the air, “there’s something I’ve been putting together in there. But it’s not ready for you to see yet.” 

I blinked. “An outfit?” I hesitated to suggest.

“Well, it’s a surprise.” He kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.

This set me off balance. A surprise, I mouthed. It was enough to make me reel. This was fantastic news indeed. Under our very roof, Bunny was keeping a secret from me!

He hung his head. “At least, it was supposed to be a surprise. I suppose it’s not a secret any longer. Still, would it be too much of me to ask you not to look? I was really looking forward to showing it to you when I had every part of it in my possession. It will be perfect for you, then!”

My daze was not yet gone. The world around me moved slowly and strangely. “I’ll not look,” I promised breathlessly, without having the forethought of giving due consideration to the potential consequences of a promise which would drive me mad for days. “How could I not have known of this?” The question was to myself as much as to him. 

In spite of the haze, a gorgeous smile returned to Bunny. “I know that you’re not in the habit of rifling through my things, AJ,” he said, with a flattering ease.

That hardly satisfied me. To discover that he’d been keeping anything from me was a profound bother. I wanted all of him to myself, and I wanted to believe that nothing that he was hiding from me (out of a misplaced sense of kindness, was my chief fear) would long escape my notice. But I knew even then that such a stance against his secret was much too unreasonable to maintain. I, too, was guilty of keeping secrets to one side of our partnership. Many more times than a single instance, I have kept the truth from him, and often for reasons that were significantly less excusable than his. It seemed very likely that this singular secret of his might be a gift, of sorts, which he was preparing especially to give to me at some later date. I ought to be pleased. 

“You’re not angry, are you?”

I shook my head measuredly. “No, not in the least.” 

He wasn’t sure of it, I could tell. He was doubting himself again. 

But I pushed his good thing forward. “I daresay, not at all! Why, this shows initiative, old chap!” It was with the sincerest effort that I drove the bother from my heart, and turned my energies toward encouragement. “There’s a whole scheme you’re bringing to life right under my nose, and I’ve not even a finger to do with it. Once there was a time when you wouldn’t do something like this without my write-off.” A hint of a chuckle, and then I clapped my hands and smiled outright. “I’m a little excited for it now, I should think. I’ll be all impatience until I find out what your game is.”

I had only added that last bit in to raise his spirits. It fulfilled its purpose admirably, and Bunny was cheerful again, and therefore, so was I; but, as I would quickly learn, I had actually foretold the future with startling accuracy.


	2. By the Pond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was inspired by [this lovely artwork gift](http://rififis.tumblr.com/post/161103386111/a-ham-common-comic-for-clearinghouse95-who-wrote) by [rififis](https://rififis.tumblr.com).

In my own house, there lied a fascinating secret that I could not uncover, for all my skills and my tools. A lot of good those weapons were, when I had given Bunny my word not to come near it. 

Villainously I wished that he had locked that forbidden locker of his. If only he had done something besides shut it away in that most accessible and unguarded safe. I carried some absurd notion that, if my flatmate had placed some lock on the doors to bar my prying, then I might not have to feel with such piercing clarity Bunny’s complete trust in me, and then I might have gone on to steal into his wardrobe. There was nothing but my promise to keep me from investigating the secret of his room, yet to be bound by a promise to Bunny to keep my hands off such a tempting mystery was halfway to torment.

I, therefore, very chivalrously made no direct attempts to throw light on his secret, literally or otherwise. However, nothing prevented my own imagination from seizing on the problem. Whatever it was that he was hiding, I knew only that it was in the wardrobe, and so naturally my thoughts turned toward a hidden costume. Though there could be anything in that compartment, it was some new set of clothes, I reasoned, that was most likely to be found inside it.

Therefore, I first proceeded along the lines of the following inquiry: what set of clothes was it? If it was a gift meant for my own tall person, then the idea came speedily to me that it might be a disguise. But what disguise would he fancy I should like as a gift? Another fast thought was that it might be a memento from the past—a cricket blazer was a distinct possibility—though Bunny must know that I’ve lost most of what fondness held out in me for that sport. It could also be some full white-tie evening costume affair, complete with tailcoat and top hat; but we already possess sets of evening wear, and tailcoats aren’t fit to be the subject of surprise presents.

A disguise, then, was my chosen angle, and I wasted much idle time in pondering the options. And it wasn’t until a walk in the park with my man that this angle was very sharply turned.

Not long after that morning of discovery, on the order of a few days later, we strolled out together, arm in arm. Evening was coming fast upon our afternoon. The weather was cool, but not cool enough to turn still water to ice. I should also mention that it was once my wilful habit to venture out of our small community at night and at no other time; this was no longer the case, for I had little to fear from the local constabulary, and not too much to fear from organized crime.

For a while, we didn’t speak of anything, and were merely together in body and soul while floating elsewhere in our minds. He had taught me how to feel contentment while doing nothing, and I was exercising that ability with success in his facilitating company; but I had taught him the goodness of speaking his mind when he had a piece to say, and he did so now.

“Do you have any limits, AJ?” he asked.

By all appearances, he was perfectly serious. Therefore, I devoted myself in seriousness to his question. “AJ Raffles, his limits,” I mused. “Retains nothing of Greek or Latin, can’t join any clubs, won’t go to the barber’s for a cut—”

Bunny’s laughter bid me cease before I could go on. “That’s not really what I was asking after,” he said with a happy smile. “I was referring to something else. It’s about—us. I was remembering something you mentioned the other day. I wanted to talk to you about it.” He wore his solemn face again, though more loosely than before. “Once or twice,” his voice slowed as his hesitations and his double-considerations increased, “you’ve mentioned that I haven’t shown you everything that I might.”

I nodded, wordlessly. It was fairly obvious what he was driving at.

“It’s true,” he quietly admitted, “that we haven’t gone as far in some areas as we could.” He carefully considered his course of action, and then asked me with admirable directness, “I suppose you don’t know much about what men do?”

“I have only you as my guide.” Speculation, of course, was rife with me, as well as with some of the papers regarding some unfortunate scandals, but as to the kind of practical data that Bunny was talking about, I had little to go on. 

He bowed his attention to the toes of his boots. “It’s a lot of responsibility, isn’t it?”

I understood him. Indeed, I could see that it was; what he was experiencing was a responsibility I had known countless times myself, having been the self-appointed leader of our team, far more often than not. To lead one’s best friend into danger—to bear the responsibility for his future on one’s own shoulders, while he follows your will as well as he can, and to the letter—it is a sort of privilege that cannot be borne lightly. He was being too kind, I thought, to take his new role in our partnership so very seriously, as if he were once again leading me into the black perils of a dwelling to be burgled by his own designs, when in reality there was no danger, physical or otherwise. “I daresay, you worry far too much about offending me. I’ve not been offended yet. On the contrary, you’ve enlightened me at every turn.”

“Shouldn’t I worry about what’s to come next, though? I don’t know yet what you like, and don’t like. I don’t know—” Slowly, his turbulent eyes looked into mine. “I don’t know how to make you as happy as you’ve made me, yet. In fact, I’m not altogether sure if I can.”

My feet moved in his rhythm quite on their own; I was too captivated by his unique mix of fondness, humility, and determination. “Bunny, please, don’t doubt yourself so. You’ve made me happier than I deserve. I mean it.”

It was with a soft sort of pleasure that he simpered. “Then, I’m very glad. Yet, we are so different, in so many ways. To you, it must appear that we’ve crossed a thousand lines, but there’s so much that I want to share with you, AJ, that I’ve yet to; there’s so much that I want to give you, still.” That gentle voice of his was laden with weight and purpose. “You’ve been so awfully good to me, ever since I lost my wits and confessed what I felt; and I don’t mind admitting that I count the nights when you’re lying beside me, and, I can finally tell you how much I love you.” 

He continued to talk, without a break, which aborted my abrupt urge to kiss him passionately. I wanted to embrace him, and whisper the generous praises that would come to the tip of my tongue with ease, and feel how he shivered and whimpered on account of my endless attentions. I longed to feel him melt in my arms, to marvel at the freely-given intimacy and warmth of his limbs as they came alive and sought to form a natural sort of union with my larger body, kindling the simmering depths of my affection to a blazing fire. Alas, now wasn’t the time for recklessness.

“But how can I ever know for certain, what you will like? Does it—do I—ever get to be too much for you?” Dreamily, he surveyed the country road ahead of us. His head gravitated towards my grateful direction. “I am sorry, AJ, I must be babbling now. It must be my nerves. This is all so new. It feels like I’m just getting to know you, all over again.”

“Nothing at all to be sorry about,” I managed to say. To my own ears, the wind was knocked out of me. “The truth is, I feel much the same as you.” I watched the road with him. “Unreasonably nervous; almost like a schoolboy again; or, ah, worse than that, still.”

The assurance of mutual anxieties relieved him of some of his own stress. He sighed extravagantly.

I breathed in, recovering myself enough to go on, and continued. “You’ve done nothing to bother me. I must have told you so a dozen times by now.”

He grimaced. “What about the future, then? Is there anything we haven’t done, that you already know you wouldn’t like? I meant to ask before, are there any limits as to what is, well, acceptable to you? Whatever it is, it never has to come up between us, if you don’t wish it.”

I shook my head. “No, I haven’t any limits like that. Although, I confess, you are going to some lengths to rouse my curiosity by means of these little questions. What exactly are you afraid I’ll not approve of?”

There wasn’t an immediate answer. I was obliged to give him a long minute or two, as he worked out his own thoughts. “If we were ever to be together, not unlike a man and a woman,” he started, only to have the suggestion falter and dwindle before he could finish it. 

Ah, now that was fascinating food for thought. Like a man and a woman, eh, but as two men? That wasn’t a great deal removed from the many artful and beautiful ways he’d made use of my body already. Although, art of this other kind really would be the first instance of our breaking an actual law on the subject! And wasn’t that a stupendously riotous thought, on its own, considering the unspeakable range of perfectly legal excitements he had lavished on me? “Ha! How delightful!” I exclaimed, and my palms itched to join in a jolly clap; but one was more importantly occupied as it was.

“Eh?” The nervousness in Bunny burst, pinched by my absurd outburst into a climactic laugh. “Delightful, did you say?”

“Yes, and I’ll say it again, if you ask me to. Is this an act that you’ve been wanting to share with me, Bunny? Why, if I’m not the luckiest man to walk the earth! What an adventurous rogue you are! It strikes me as a fine proposition, very fine. Not that I would be an expert on it, but I’ll take it from your apparent interest that it’s not a bad experience.” I hardly suspected that it would be a very painful experience, since even I, in my ignorance, knew it to be of some popularity among men of Bunny’s stamp. More likely, it was pleasing in its own right (somehow? I wasn’t confident on the mechanics); but that was a detail of small moment to me, just then.

What was running at the front of all my considerations was how the idea suggested a physical completeness. The romance that Bunny’s perfectly amiable heart had thrust upon my being was steadily destroying all the social boundaries that had existed between us, as they would be expected to restrain the friendships of any proper gentlemen. The end of this final physical and emotional barrier between us would mark the sublime death of the last vestiges of decorous restraint remaining between us.

Granted, I didn’t know which one of us he intended to be the giver, and which one the receiver (or if that polite terminology was even applicable) but that was a particular that didn’t occupy me overmuch. Whichever his choice in that realm was, it would be all the more agreeable to me if it were his own decision, uninfluenced by me. Like the bedroom acts that had come before it, this act would reveal even more of his most concealed wants. His splendid desires of me, which had once caused him private shame, would be mine to cherish, and would become my desires as well. 

“What? A fine proposition?” Bunny echoed, disbelievingly. “But I haven’t said anything about it!” There was amusement in those words, flavoured with joy and relief.

“Haven’t you?” I hummed.

A pretty blush coloured his light skin. “Well, I haven’t outright proposed anything yet!”

“Ah, very true. In your own time, then, of course.” I could be insufferably patient, when I wished to be. “Never mind that I’ve given you my approval ahead of schedule.” 

It was overly good of him to resist elbowing me in the side. Nonetheless, his determination kicked in, spiking through him once more. “AJ,” he leaned forward a bit, bravely, “I may not be ready to propose anything definite, but there are really two of us who can make propositions. What are you thinking, really? Are you keen? Surely, there’s nothing you could ask for from me, that would make me think any less of you for having asked it. If you’re curious about any obscure point, maybe, or interested in doing together what we haven’t done, please; all you need do is ask.” 

“Indeed, I am very curious, and very interested, in everything you have to show me.”

He waited for me to elaborate into specifics. When I did not, he sighed sweetly, and I laughed along with it. This was the newest of the great Raffles’ limits in his character: he was not about to push forward when he had Bunny’s push to look forward to.

There is one pond in the civilized corner of Ham Common, and it was in front of this lovely feature that Bunny and I shared a long seat in the form of a bench. His pale, small hand came by its own desires onto its darker admirer; our fingers interlocked without hesitation, weaving within and without as completely as strands of hair in a braid. I relished the responsive liveliness of his hand in mine. There was something beautiful about feeling how decisively he returned my affections for him. 

Bunny looked down at our rubbing knuckles. He was smirking, at what I imagined to be our flagrant disregard of the publicity of our little stunt. We were out in the open, keeping up the intriguing pretence that we were nothing more than friendly acquaintances, in a year in which friendly acquaintances could still get away with linking arms without arousing suspicion. The truth was not obvious in our faces or in our gait, yet our fingers knew the facts of our relationship, and so did we. Our eagerness to live and die for each other was our best inside joke, and served as still another link to unite us and make us an enemy of anyone.

(Personally, I enjoyed the experience of concealing our complicated relationship from the simple world, as much as it suited me to hide every other crime we shared in; though, while I was by no means against having my exploits made famous after my time, I was sure that what Bunny and I meant to each other was too subtle and of too great a value to ever be a fit gift for public consumption.)

It was not our hands that I watched, but his face. I thought about how airy his moustache continued to be, contrary to all his patience in growing it out. Even with the increased time spent outside, it is only the outside of the English house; the parts of him that were available to the sun were hardly touched by its browning reach. The cut of the short hair underneath his flat cap was not terribly short. His face is rounder than mine, his nose smaller, his cheeks and chin softer.

A woman’s voice rudely punctured our space to say, “Sir, I think that you’ve misplaced your hat.”

Bunny’s spirited, lovely hand yanked itself quickly from me, to seek the cover of its twin in his lap. 

I stared at the ill-mannered woman, irritated. Neither Bunny nor I had noticed the coming of her, her parasol, or her male companion. Their arrival had interrupted us, and worse, had done so to do something as trivial as castigate my choice of dress. That we had to pull apart because of them was infuriating. 

She continued walking with him without awaiting any response from me, chatting with him about I didn’t care what.

I did not raise my glare from these two members of the public. My arm went up and back behind Bunny, to rest on the rim of the bench. I leaned over. 

Bunny’s twiddling thumbs were associating like bosom pals. He was watching the two walkers, presumably waiting for them to leave.

There was no need to wait, in my view; I silently spun all my attention to Bunny and kissed him defiantly on the side of his face.

It took him by surprise. His kindly eyes searched my expression, probably for a betraying flicker of my devious character showing through; however, I only let my fondness for him show. Perhaps he is too gentle to feel it himself, but I knew that he could understand what I was thinking then, as he has always been the one to understand me. No opinion but his own had weight with me.

“Let’s head towards home,” I said. “The sun is starting to set.”

The thought of home must have attracted us in equal measures. His features softened into a perfect picture of domesticity and contentment. Our noses came to be no more than a pencil’s width apart; I had a chance to admire how the dwindling rays of the sun illuminated the outward love and the hidden strength in his boyish face.

Abruptly, I pulled back. “Oh, but one more thing, before we go. It shouldn’t take more than a moment.”

“Oh?” Curious, Bunny hummed. “Uh, all right.”

Rising from where I sat, I called out down the path, “Excuse me, young lady?”

The couple turned back to me.

“I seem to have misplaced my hat,” I bellowed. “May we borrow yours?”

She flinched. Atop her own head was a fashionable feathered, laced, wide-brimmed, feminine specimen, a far cry from the tame straw boater worn by her friend.

“I would have asked to borrow that of your gentleman,” I went on, without the slightest smirk, “but I don’t care for its quality. Yours isn’t quite my style, either, I’ll grant you, but I also think that my friend could pull it off with great success. Then I could use his hat, which is very superior. How does that appeal to you?” 

The two walkers each refused to answer my absurd entreaty, and at a brisk pace went on their way.

Pleased, I spun on my heel, expecting to find a grinning audience, but finding in his place a confused Bunny standing on two restless feet. 

“What do you mean,” he asked, giving away none of his emotions save that of anxiety, “pull it off with great success?”

I was at a loss to tell him what I had meant, because I had meant exactly what I had said, and it hadn’t struck me when I said it as an offensive remark. The best humour is the truth, or so I’ve been disposed to believe; and it was the pinnacle of truth that Bunny would look more sweet and appealing in a bonnet than anyone else, man or woman.

“Oh.” His stiffened shoulders relaxed. “You weren’t serious, were you?” Bunny laughed too late at my joke. “Never mind me, I understand. You said that to score off that lady.” He put his hands on his hips. “Well, you know, AJ, I’m sure I would have played my bit in your gag and donned the thing if she had really given it over.” A gorgeous smile from him further promised me his complicity in all my absurdity. “Yes—and I was near to thinking that you might be calling me to that!”

It was a jolt to hear him dismiss the compliment I had given him into only a joke. Stubbornly, I refuted him. “Then I am sure that I will resent her unkind refusal especially,” I said bluntly, “if it has deprived me of seeing you one-up her in style.”

The smile sneaked awkwardly away. Bunny tilted his head. “What?”

Shards of tension shot up my arms, and my fists half-curled. “You are prettier than she,” I insisted hotly, “and her hat is too nice for her, anyway! I ought to have taken it from her. It would prove far more fetching on you. And that feather boa round her neck, also, would be more useful round yours,” I added more loudly than I should have, possibly on the very vain idea that the world would hear me, “and the dress she wore, too, you would wear infinitely better! Far more refined and fine, you are!”

Bunny was stunned. A profound confusion had returned to its throne. He clutched at his lapel; his finger traced the edge of it, while he stared at me. 

My eyes opened wide, when they at last registered how I had startled my friend. I had given my verdict with a tone of finality equal to a judge making his ruling, and with a furious thrust more fit for the barrister.

“I never expected you to say you’d like me in a dress,” Bunny said. “It’s—the notion’s a little silly, isn’t it?”

“A little,” I owned. My fury turned into sheepishness. “Forgive me, if I’ve insulted you in the slightest.”

“No!” he quickly countered. “No, I’m not insulted. How can I be that? I—I don’t know what I am, but what you said was very kind.” He clasped my hand between his own. “I see now, you were serious.” He lifted himself onto his toes, and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Thank you, AJ. Silly or not,” he prefaced lightly, “I am very flattered. Thank you.”

The kiss from him was as lovely and soft as the man who bestowed it. In front of me, he was a tender angel bathed in the fire of the setting sun. I blushed. “Well,” was all I could answer his gratitude with, and rather stupidly at that.

“I wouldn’t mind it. You really wouldn’t mind it, either, would you,” he asked quietly, shyly, “seeing me in a dress? Putting a lady’s things on me? It doesn’t seem to bother you at all. Rather, it seems to me that you’re partial to the idea, in your own way. Is that right?” He bit his lip, in the cutest possible fashion. “As if I were a dress-up doll, almost?” 

My suggestion of him wearing a lady’s hat seemed to be affecting him altogether more deeply than I had anticipated. Doll was not the word I would have used myself, but I understood his meaning that I cherished him as a child might cherish a doll, and would be pleased to show him off like one. I wasn’t prepared to argue with the comparison. 

There was a brief pause. “Maybe—maybe I should not be so surprised,” he said. “You did say that you had no limits, and you’ve been that way so far; I suppose woman’s clothing won’t be the first line to stop at.”

Momentarily, I frowned. No, woman’s clothing was not one of my limits. Why should it be? 

Then, a spark flashed through me. At that very instant, just when my mind was as far as it could possibly be from the secret of his which had dogged me for days, the problem and its solution fell back into full awareness. I realized what his infamous secret must be. There was no doubt in my heart. I knew exactly the truth of the grand mystery that he was concealing from me his room amongst his clothes, rubbing furtive elbows with his gentlemanly coats and white shirts.

“Do you wish to wear woman’s clothing, Bunny?” I asked.

He gasped. Light flickered all round his bright eyes. “I—I didn’t say so!”

“But you do, don’t you?” Villainously, the tables were turned; I held onto his hands, the second that he released mine in a nigh panic. I could read it all over him. Plainly he would be afraid to admit that, and neither could I blame him for his apprehension. A man does not wear a lady’s dress, though life at university instructed me that some fellows find it humorous to make games of wearing lady’s dresses, much to my distaste. But it was no game to Bunny; and if a bonnet or a boa suited his exterior, then it couldn’t matter a lick to me, except to know that his too-humble interior was delighting at my pride in his beauty and his courage. 

“Me? Um, I don’t know.” He made the most adorable face of bashful uncertainty. His fingers tugged mildly at my resolute grip. My own responding affectionate expression had the effect of making his bashfulness worse. He was red as the sun currently breaking into its horizon. “Besides!” he declared, fiercely, to cover himself; he was spectacularly cute. “I’ve dressed like a woman once before, have I not? I made a disguise of it—though I never used it outside, as I intended to. That was years ago, while you were taking that inscrutable rest cure of yours. You must remember that?” 

I did remember. I frowned pointedly. “It was not an inscrutable rest cure.”

“It was inscrutable,” he retorted with equal verve, though it made no difference either way. He remained embarrassed, and I remained adoring. But it wasn’t bad for him. We were in a good mood together. We were alone in each other’s company, and all the race was reduced to only the two of us again. His bright eyes met my gaze, and spoke wordless volumes of how cheerful he was to be with me, despite his embarrassment and my excessive attention on him. 

“As I recall, you were an impressive little lady,” I whispered. “The right amount of make-up, and everything else. It was very well done, Bunny, especially for a first time.”

His startled gasp was a loud one. “You thought so?” A guilt like a hundred knives fell on me, when I saw how moved he was by my simple praise. I’d never praised him for his efforts. I had failed him. “But—”

“I am sorry,” I was driven by a sharp ache in my soul to say. “I am sorry that I did not tell you what you deserved to hear back then. I was in too bad a state that day, when our host came to surprise us in our digs—but that’s no excuse.” I stroked his hair, between his ear and the rim of his cap. The memory was a sweet one, as well as painful; it was bad to think of what had gone wrong in that borrowed house, but swell to remember the time I’d spent with my best friend in that dark place for days, outside of all society. “You were good enough to be a lady about town, if only I would have let you. From the beginning of that adventure, I could have trusted you better than I did.” It was my greatest habitual error, in those days: in my paranoia, I repeatedly neglected to let Bunny have his turn. If his self-confidence was low to this day, then it was my own fault.

Bunny wasn’t upset or angry, to my surprise and my relief. “You—you thought I was all right?”

“It was a neater job than I was honest enough to give you credit for!” I replied heartily. “Not to mention, you had our host fooled in that dress and sunhat.”

“That was for a moment or two, only,” he couldn’t help but correct, but he was flattered all the same. A calmer, happier air entered him and raised his spirits. His feelings of embarrassment matured into something a hundred times as precious. “AJ.” His head nudged into my caress. “Thank you. I could have trusted you better, too, to take care of everything, which you did,” he said; yet those words were eerily strange to hear, while he so palpably was trusting himself to my touch in the present. 

“You can trust me now,” I suggested, a touch cheekily, “with your secret inclination to wear a dress.”

“Fine,” he blurted immediately, straightening himself rebelliously, “if you trust me with your secret inclination to dress me up!”

How off my guard that took me! I laughed aloud. “Ah, what an ingenious trade! Then it is settled. Agreed, agreed!”

We brought our lips together, quickly and quietly. It was a lasting seal of our absurd pact, and simultaneously as a dare to challenge anyone lurking in the bushes to do their worst against us. Together, we were an invincible team; the disruption of the passersby was swiftly forgotten.

I wasn’t about to forget how I’d solved his secret, of course, but I was much too fond of looking forward to how he would react to my acceptance of him when the time came. I slipped my arm into his—while enjoying that small, contented face he makes to himself every time I’ve ever linked arms with him—and made no further mention of dresses, bonnets, or boas.


	3. Playing Cards

The ruined surprise which Bunny was concealing did not remain so for much longer after I’d deduced it. He opened his wardrobe doors to me the very next day, in the evening, three quarters of an hour or so after we had dined.

We were hanging about the siphon, doing nothing but enjoying ourselves in our evening clothes. Our cigarettes in the ash tray and our plates were long gone. Bunny was abuzz with more than just the effects of drink in his system; it was clear as day that he had something exciting to reveal to me. Practicing all my iron-clad patience, I had talked with him throughout the night about nothing more important than our last game of baccarat, waiting for him to come to the reveal in his own way. Meanwhile, I was watching with great interest at how his exhilaration grew; his feet tapped a duet that his nervous fingers conducted. For most of dinner, we had talked about novels of the previous century, and we had just begun to come back round to discussing the writing of our century (specifically, his own; he wrote a great deal) when he almost dropped the second shot of whiskey that I had siphoned for him. 

Him having been the absolute centre of all my attention, it should have come as no surprise to anyone that I caught the glass before it got very far. Bunny, however, was amazed.

“How did you do that?” he asked of me, as a young audience wonders aloud at the works of a circus magician.

I let him have his glass. He accepted, though he did not think to drink it. “I thought it might fall after all,” I said. “I could see that I was distracting you, with my talk of your apparent literary obsession with Australia. It is remarkable how the subject of your chosen profession never fails to embarrass you.”

Bunny stared uncertainly down at the liquor. His two hands together formed a tight, generous ring around the tiny drink. “No, it’s not that you were distracting me,” he mumbled. “It’s only my own nerves that do it.”

I raised an eyebrow. Of course, even in this small matter, he would spare me my due blame.

“It must be plain to you that I don’t have all my wits with me right now, I suppose.”

“Come, I wouldn’t go that far.” My arm had a mind to reassure him by slinging round his shoulders. But that might have been patronizing, rather than supporting; instead, I exercised restraint and leaned my limb on the mantlepiece. “I’ll allow that you may be excited.”

The overlapping thumbs riding along the rim of his drink swapped over one another. His eyes darted up to me. “Does it run in your family?” 

“What is that?”

“Your nerves,” he said. “Were you born with them?”

I didn’t like to answer this question of his. It was a question full of self-reproach, I could tell. He wasn’t asking me about my calm manners, so much as he was apologizing for the lack of his own. That much could be read in the embarrassed creases in his countenance. I proceeded delicately. “You mustn’t let such a stand suggest itself. Nerves like mine are very rare. I’m afraid they’re not easy to come by.”

“Then, you did come by them?”

I sighed. It went against my inclination to avoid misleading comparisons between us, but he was not to be satisfied without an explanation, then I owed it to him. “Perhaps I was a leg ahead of the rest, at the start,” I admitted, to allow that I was born with some advantage in that direction, “but composure was a skill I cultivated, like every other.” 

“In school?” he asked, three-quarters with ease, but a quarter as if he were afraid someone might overhear. The slight, abashed hush of his words spoke of how he still carried underneath his soft surface the feelings of the long nights when he had served as my adolescent lieutenant on the lookout.

“I had the trick of steady fingers down to a nicety before we ever met,” I replied simply.

“How? What did you do?”

“The precise method can’t possibly be of interest to you.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Instead of putting him off the scent of this false comparison, my deflection only beckoned him onward. “On the contrary,” he exclaimed, “I am very interested to hear it!”

Briefly, I thought the thing over. Unfortunately, the topic was of too great interest to him for me to dismiss it now. He was too much my friend for me to deny him. I surrendered. “I’ll show you my method, then, if you like.”

“Yes, please.”

“But you mustn’t take it too seriously, all right? Self-control is not a matter of personal character, but of practice, and technique.”

A tiny pinch in his brow indicated that he wasn’t certain what I meant by that. Nevertheless, he did nod at my condition, and that would have to be enough for me.

In a drawer below where the siphon of whiskey lived, I found an old pack of playing cards—the same one that found frequent use during rounds of our special version of friendly baccarat—and took a seat at the table with them. I did make the mistake of shuffling them just then, via dividing the pack into halves and folding these divisions into one another. This wasn’t at all necessary of me, and moreover, the action gave Bunny the wrong idea. 

He joined me, and sat across. His face was beset with determination. His elbows were set hard onto the table as his shoulders heaved forward. If a cold sweat was about to break out of him, that would have been consistent with the rest of his attitude. Altogether he was expecting some frightening game of chance from me, when that wasn’t at all what I had in store.

“You may find it childish,” I said, “when I show you what the old method really was.”

Furiously he shook his head. “No such thing,” he insisted zealously. Within him was the unassuming power to make me feel that nothing I ever did, however mean or foolish it might be, would lower me in his view, and this was the power that I felt blasted to me full effect.

For him, I played the game. I summoned all my focus. My reservations, having failed to sway me, were themselves swept away. I patted the pack into a single uniform body in front of me. Drawing two cards with the unthinking mastery of one who has spent too much of his life in proximity to them, I held them tall and parallel to each other. At my direction, they broke their formation to form a pyramid with the table. I left them standing in that way, removing my intervention carefully.

Bunny’s eyes widened with innocent understanding. The tension in the air around him dissolved into a prettier, playful aura. He had the same look of captivation as any time he has seen me drill through a door or pick apart a lock.

However, just as the satisfied trickster’s smirk was cresting my lips, the fledgling house of cards of my design collapsed, with hardly a sound to credit its demise. It was no great loss. I shrugged. “No luck for this one, eh?” 

A sweet, relaxed, hopeful smile shined back at me, softly demanding that I try again. 

Without bothering to remove the two flattened cards, I began a new house beside the ruins. There was no failure after the first. Three pyramids I built in a line, all of their faces on the inside; atop these were placed a downward roof of two more cards, which themselves were the floor for a second level of pyramids, and eventually, a distant support for the third and final pyramid. The emotion of old that threatened to shake my grip while my dearest friend gazed fully on me was a futile force, one that I had long ago mastered to perfection and could keep contained with ease, even though I never did learn to keep those emotions from reverberating through my heart. I kicked the butt of a finger very softly into a slackening card at the bottom, and then moved away with hands spread. Eager palpitations filled my ears, while true to form the physical extensions of my will betrayed nothing.

Bunny could not have grinner wider at a success if it were his own.

Part of me protested that I hadn’t done anything to seriously warrant so much admiration. To stack so few cards in such a fashion required no great effort or cleverness. However, his admiration, warranted or not, was an ambrosia to which I could not be immune. His silent amazement and delight were a dizzying pleasure, which I was not strong enough to set to rights. At least, I maintained a gentlemanly modesty. “What do you think, Bunny? Not a bad little parlour trick? It may seem like much, but you mustn’t be too impressed. This is a small structure. My scale was more respectable in the past. It’s been years since I made my last, though. Some practice might be wanted before I could show you four levels.”

“That was marvellous.”

“It’s all technique. A practiced skill, and nothing more. It’s likely you could learn it yourself, if you cared to.”

Bunny’s pretty admiration fell off my shoulders, to fall somewhere behind me, growing distant. “Maybe I should have,” he said strangely.

I frowned. “Why do you say that?” I did my best to fight him off again from this path of trying to be more like me. “It’s only a trick, and a trick’s not so amusing when two people know it.”

That warming, whole-hearted admiration of his swam back onto me, inundating my reason and my senses. His hands clenched into fists on the table, unmoving, but tense; a slam from those curled hands just then would have had more than the needed energy to knock over my card structure. “But this was how you mastered your nerves, wasn’t it? Building houses of cards, over and over, until you could manage it without having your fingers shake?” His hands uncurled, and he humbly surveyed them. “If I could do stack cards, too, then, maybe—”

“That’s really not necessary,” I cut in, much to his surprise. “Why should you waste your time on parlour tricks? I have those enough card tricks for both of us, I assure you. You have no need for steady fingers. You already have the strength you want in you. Even though you won’t believe me when I say so, I submit to you, with confidence, that you are capable of confidence and self-control to match mine.”

He crossed his arms. “You’re right,” he muttered apologetically. “I can’t agree with you.”

There was a powerful, pounding ache in my lovesick chest. “Then, I will prove it to you.”

“Prove it?”

“Ha! Yes. I will prove,” I declared hotly, “that you already have braveness and steadiness in you, though you don’t know them for what they are. In fact, I already have a test in mind for you, one that will meet the case very nicely. I can see that you believe me even less now than you did moments ago, but trust me; your nerves will keep flawless balance!” I slammed my own fists, violently quaking my cards, which trailed streaks of white, red and black as they collapsed inward. “You won’t be able to disagree with me, when I’ve made you see what I see.”

That feverish proposal of mine, put forward without proper warning of the onset of my most infamous vigour, held him virtually spellbound. He glanced between me and my decimated pile. “I—I won’t be able to make a pyramid of cards.” Though his tone was doubting, he was playing along. To my immense delight, he was ready to follow my lead blindly once more.

Restoring calmness to my manner, I said, “I won’t ask you to. There’s something else you can do; something you can do better than anyone.” 

“What is that?”

Rising from my place, I wandered over to the sofa where I’d been reading a few hours earlier. The book that I’d abandoned in favour of Bunny’s company remained there, still opened to its half-read page, on one arm of the furniture. I grabbed the book, and returned immediately to my friend. “Will you stand for me?”

He did so, his arms falling to his side. “What do you need me to do?”

I couldn’t resist a small grin at his apparent eagerness to take part in this latest game. It wasn’t exactly eagerness, perhaps, since his participation was partially involuntary, though the sentiment in his determined features was adorably close to that. Drawing his shorter form to exactly where I wished it to be, I placed my book on top of his head, and let go of it. “Careful, now, easy does it.” Easily, the book settled securely into its own gravity. “No touching.”

Some men might have protested at the foolish errand, but not Bunny. He wore the book on his hair with the dignity of a gentleman under a particularly precarious hat. The book’s shadow darkened his face from the central lighting of the room, yet his curiosity glimmered through to meet my gaze. He asked me, “I’m to balance this book, then?”

“That is the plan. You don’t like it?”

“It’s a far easier job than balancing cards.”

“I don’t think it is!” I asserted my conviction as spiritedly as I felt it. “But I haven’t told you the second condition of the test yet. Here it is: I’ll be standing behind you, making a better card tower than the one before.”

“A taller card tower? Didn’t you say something about being too out of practice?”

“Yes, I did say that, and no, it’s not a taller tower I’ll be building, nor will it be more difficult to construct than my unfortunate pyramid was; but it will be a far better tower that I make, all the same. When it’s done, you’ll spin about very slowly, see the glorious tower, and though my astounding tower will shock you, you’ll contain your shock well enough to keep the book on your head. That is the test.”

This wasn’t actually my plan, but it wasn’t far from it, either, and the excessive egotism in it had a good ring of truth to it. Bunny, good fellow, took me at my word. “If you say so.”

Suddenly, as it occurred to me just what I was about to do, I was insufferably glad to have been given this chance to help him find his confidence, to support him in my own knavish way at this vital hour.

Taking my place between him and the table, without allowing him any suspicion of the truth of my next actions, I very surreptitiously began to stack cards on the book on his head. The style of structure I used for this was not the flimsy formation of a pyramid. For this latest trick, I made the cards form a stable square, like the walls of a house, wherein each card was lying on its long side and was leaning into another card which was perpendicular to it. Atop these jutting walls I laid four cards to be their ceiling, and repeated the process. Three levels in all I reached, without a single collapse.

“Turn round,” I bade, “very, slowly, if you could, so as not to make the book rotate a hair.”

Bunny did exactly as I asked, turning more carefully than was sensibly called for, only because I had asked him to. The house of cards, unbeknownst to him, remained excellently unshaken, turning with him as naturally if it were an extension of himself. My dear friend looked straightaway to the table, searching for what I had promised to create, but finding nothing at all save the retired pack of cards.

My own nerves danced excitedly underneath the heavy blanket of my self-control. “Shocking, isn’t it, Bunny?” This must have been evil of me, going on like this as if he had seen the truth, when he still was in the dark.

Yet how good-humouredly he reacted! He took it all as a joke, with a terribly forgiving smile. “Very funny, AJ. You didn’t make anything while my back was turned. Well, that’s not so very shocking an outcome as you might have thought it would be. It can’t be very impressive that I didn’t drop the book when I discovered that you didn’t make any house of cards.”

“No house of cards? My dear Bunny!” With a speed that was only as slow as it needed to be, I removed the book from his head, and held it to him. “What do you call this?”

That did it for him. The innocuous stack of cards on my book drained him of all his colour. He gasped harshly, and froze in near-terror. Terror, at least, was not too far from the prodigious, unnerved astonishment that bled through the white of his eyes. He was realizing what I had done, and, more to the point, what he had unknowingly done. It frightened him to see the proof of what great ability he wielded in his marrow, hidden to him and to all but me.

I placed the book on the table. Its real estate remained intact. “Your nerves are very sound,” I said, putting into words the conclusion that he was reluctantly reaching on his own, “or I would never have been able to assemble the cards as I did. Who but you could balance a book, with a devil doing who-knows-what behind your back, and manage to keep the book as steady as this?” I clapped his shoulders. “I was out of your sight; under my orders, you couldn’t move; and yet, you didn’t care about any of that. Not only did you keep to the silly position I thrust on you, but you were also as still as ice the entire while. A braver man than you, Bunny,” my grip tightened on him, as I leaned in, “I’ve never known!”

Though neither of us was ever given to hysterics, he came close to it at that moment. The corner of his lips twitched helplessly. A nervous giggle wracked him; it was somewhat mirthful, and somewhat furious. However, he couldn’t bring himself to pull away from me, however abashed he was. “That’s—that’s awful!”

“Awfully brilliant, you mean?”

“It’s a false test!” he broke into a full laugh. “I could never have done that if I had known!”

I didn’t deny that. “I’m afraid that it was necessary that you not know.” Out of sensitivity to his turbulent emotions, I receded enough to give him a little space to himself. “When you have only yourself to trust, Bunny, your faith in yourself falters, which is, of course, not an uncommon ailment; but your trust in your partner never wavers an inch, and that is where the incomparable strength of your nerves shows itself. You had faith, not in yourself, but in me, and the simple but absurd task I was asking of you; and in that area, you’ve never fallen short.”

He couldn’t speak. No final argument of refusal ever did offer itself to him. If he was flattered, as I hoped he was, then no one ever as rocked by flattery as he was at this moment.

“Do you see what I'm getting at now? You are stronger than you know.”

Gently, he came to match my expression. “AJ,” he breathed, “you are very kind. Thank you.” 

I gave him a quick, sympathetic kiss on the mouth, and then let him go. “No, I must thank you, for suffering my little card trick,” I countered, because the fierce sweetness of his appreciation was, admittedly, quite charming, and too charitable for me to confront outright. “You make a most agreeable audience.”

Bunny smiled wide at me.

And I smiled back, well-contented with a good night’s work, and feeling that I could do worse than to lose myself in his golden smile; but he was only just beginning.

He pulled himself up tall. “AJ,” he said in earnest, “before we turn in for the night, there’s something I want to show you. It’s finished,” he huffed. “The small gift that I’ve been putting together for you. It’s in my room presently. Would you like to see it?”

My abrupt fascination was such that I would have scooted to the edge of my seat, if there had been one beneath me. Oh, at last—his secret. This was the sweet excitement I had been waiting hours for, if not days. Finally, he was confident enough to share his woman’s clothing with me. It was also very amusing that he considered a lady’s dress for himself to be a gift for me. Although, from my perspective, it might certainly be considered to amount to that; for I was greatly looking forward to his grand reveal for its own sake. “Of course, with all convenient speed,” I replied, my voice and my eyelashes both drooping with the weight of self-assurance and fondness.

He must have mistook my composed confidence for an apathetic boredom, because he added after that, “I do believe that you will like it!”

“Without a doubt I will!” I cried instantly. “Even without having seen any piece of it to date, I am sure that you have nothing to fear about if it will please me. You know me so well, better than I know myself. You’re too much my match, Bunny. Any present from you was fated from the beginning to suit me!”

He readily believed me and my excessively indulgent manner. A delighted grin caught up with him. His concerns respecting my approval rolled down to only a simmer. He hadn’t quite understood my meaning, necessarily, but my words had reassured him anyway, and that was all was needed.

I followed him to his bedroom, allowing him to lead without interrogation on my end. For me, there was no longer any mystery to what he had in store, except for the details of the feminine attire he had chosen for himself, and how he would present it. It was the latter of these two mysteries which pressed my curiosity most. I asked myself, would he allow me to help him into it? And could I help him into it right away? I wondered, too, if he would welcome any meddling with the make-up to the eyes, cheeks, and lips, as well as my assistance concerning the removal of the thin facial hair that had not yet been shaved away.

Although, it was unexpected how abruptly and unceremoniously he opened his dressing-cupboard directly we entered his room and the lamp was lit. He didn’t wait a second before he did so. Inside the respectable piece of furniture, however, was the real cover for his surprise. It was a dull sheet, draping from the top of the innards to cover the left third of the wardrobe’s contents, hiding the dress entirely from view. Bunny’s other clothes were all visible, and pushed off to the right. The silhouette of the sheet suggested that whatever was inside was not hung up as the other clothes were, but was, in fact, standing more or less on its own, pushed to the rear of the furniture piece. 

Positioning himself aside the wardrobe, and rigid as an old-fashioned butler, Bunny stood by this curious enclave. “Here it is! I hope that you like it!” A moment later, the obscuring sheet was pulled downward and away, revealing all to me, at long last. 

Alas! It was not what I had predicted it to be.

Frozen to my veins, I ceased to breathe, after whispering his name like an oath.

The ladylike, hourglass-shaped threads of my imagination vanished, crumbling away into the false dream that it had always been. In its place, there appeared before me a humble painter’s easel, crammed into the back of the dressing-cupboard.

“These materials are exactly like what you had in your old studio, aren’t they? You’ve told me how you liked to think about being a painter, or, at least, having the materials around to look at and remind you of when you used to paint. Well, there’s no reason why you can't have that again, in this house of ours!”

On the floor of the dressing-cupboard, a roll of plain-weave canvas was set apart from pigments, oil, turpentine, a paintbox, extra brushes, a fresh palette, medium, and sketching pencils. There was no dainty corset, skirt, or bonnet beside any of it. He had not been thinking of himself. He had been thinking only of me.

“I imagined you might like to take up an old hobby—something to do while I’m at my writing desk and you’re unoccupied, I supposed. Although, I’ve not forgotten what you said about having found no inspiration for the work, but I had a little hope that Ham Common could be more inspiring to the artist in you than was the backdrop of the old school. Or, if painting has no practical appeal to you, then there’s no need for any of these materials to be used. I can put up shelves for the paints and so forth, and we can make them up like showpieces, by the fireplace. I may be wrong, but I understood that the sight of paints gives you the same sort of satisfaction that my books give me, and there’s something to be said for nostalgia—”

“Bunny,” I whispered. My knees had gone weak. I couldn’t shake the weakness. I was too moved. This was unavoidable proof of how attentively and seriously he listened to even the lightest things that I told him. In his head swam every word I’d ever given him, words sometimes cold and sometimes heated; in his head was a mind devoted to me and my happiness. Unnoticed by me, he had picked out one of the trivial confessions I’d given up during one of our private rounds of truth-or-dare baccarat, for no purpose but to find a new way of making me the happiest man in the country.

He must have seen how infirm I became in front of the onslaught of painter’s tools. He defied his butler’s stance and hurried forward to support me. He held me up while I gazed upon the easel in a daze, feeling as unworthy of my superior friend as I ever had.

“This is the kindest present I’ve ever received,” I murmured.

That meant to the world to him. “It—it is?”

Half of me was not in my body just then, yet I managed to crane my neck to get a good look at him. In the half-acceptable lighting of the bedroom at this dark hour, he was an angel, all friendliness and affection. I loved how lighthearted and happy he had become, despite his little empathetic anxiety at my bodily overreaction which peeked through his happiness. I loved, too, that I could feel his hands on me, bearing me up, unafraid of me or of being close to me. This was my chance, I thought, after all the unpredictable years of our peerless and immortal association, to tell him that I loved him.

The words fought to come to life outside my soul. Bunny, make me yours forever; Bunny, at all costs I must return some of this happiness to you; Bunny, I love you, as truly a man ever loved. These and a hundred other tender lines rattled almost mechanically, left to right, somewhere in the space between my ears. Had I opened my lips to give them voice, I might have gone on for the rest of night drowning him in hackneyed poetry.

Only, no. Not now. Those infamous nerves of mine worked against me, compelling me to restrain myself against the impulse to confess my love, when to do so now would be to communicate entirely the wrong sort of message. Assuming I had earned the right to tell him that I loved him—which was doubtful—this wasn’t the moment for it. My first real declaration of love was not to be so vulgarly given in exchange for a gift, however enchantingly caring and thoughtful a gift it was. My love was not as frivolous as that. I was committed to him, and when my confession to him would be my commitment’s reflection.

In every other respect, however, my nerves refused to rise to the occasion. Maybe I could have forced body to not tremble and shake, and steeled my outward emotions; perhaps it would have been very manageable for me to not have all my inward and outward composure so thoroughly ruined by this kindness of his; but why should I have bothered to keep that up? It didn’t pain me to have him see what he had done to me. Quite the opposite; I wanted him to observe for himself the effect his goodness had on me. Holding nothing back, I asked him, “Do you believe I’ll take up painting again?”

“I don’t mean to take for granted that you will.” Either out of his continued kindness, or out of a hard-earned understanding of my character, he dared not to presume for me. “You might, or might not.”

“But if I did, then that would come as no surprise to you?”

Permission for his opinion granted, he let himself give a nod. “That’s right.” The admission was spoken respectfully, yet with strength. He wasn’t ashamed of how much faith he endowed in me, and the few fine qualities that I possessed.

Softly, I took a fistful of the lower back of his blazer into one hand. “You are too generous, Bunny,” I murmured, “far too generous, to think so well of me. I am a lazy idler. I’m not a creator, like you are. I’m the rogue to fake a master’s copy to be like the original. It’s not my lot to set the fresh master into its canvas.”

“Then, don’t paint a master!” he replied. The refreshingly hard edge that he had not long ago thought himself incapable of settled firmly into place. “Do nothing with the paints, if you like, or do next to nothing. You could take the pigments by their vials and dash them madly across the canvas without rhyme or reason, and it would make no difference to me, as long as the blots of powder pleased you. I saw how your eyes sparkled, just now; I know that there must be something in this to tempt you. It doesn’t matter at all to me what form that temptation takes, as long as your heart is in it,” his confidence and his hope gave power to his soft-spoken voice, “as long as it’s a joy to you.”

I couldn’t sustain under this compassion of his anymore. A joy to me? Couldn’t my friend accept that he owed me nothing? Didn’t he realize that I had joy enough for a hundred men, living with a friendly and sympathetic ally in peace, my devotion to him the sole mechanism with which I could cope with how devoted he was to me? Our romance had begun on the basis that there were ways that only I could satisfy him, and that I wished to be satisfying to him, and yet always he ranked my own satisfaction as his one and ultimate goal. There was a burning sensation taking root round my eyes, but I couldn’t close them, for fear of losing sight of him. I bowed my face to very near his own. Though our differences in height required that I tilt my chin down to him, I felt that he was very much above me. “Please, kiss me.”

A very pretty blush came to life, contrasting brilliantly against his pale skin and his black tailcoat. Though my request filled him with instinctive eagerness, my unusually faint manner arrested him.

“Please, be selfish with me. Your secret—your gift to me—was not selfish enough, not a fraction as selfish as I counted on it to be! I’ll not be satisfied with this gift, until you make it fair.” I ignored how the dewy precursors of tears were giving away my fondness of him. “So take your greatest heart’s desire from me. Anything you wish; anything you’ve ever wished.”

He was sweetly astonished by the little tears gathering in my cool eyes. “But, these paints are only my free present to you, AJ.” He stared at me, questioningly. “I don’t expect anything in return for them. And I don’t know if they’re so much to warrant anything in return.”

“If you won’t be selfish, Bunny, then will you go on as a favour to me?” I cried, through the space of my lungs as well as at the crests of my cheeks. Patiently, my companion allowed me to pursue the end of my infatuated fury. “Use me in whatever way gives you joy. All the dark fantasies you have remaining of me in you, deliver them to light. Run me through your magnificent gauntlet; show me what I can do to be gratifying to you—you, who I adore to madness, and whose tender love I don’t deserve. Once you do all that, Bunny, I may be able to accept your very considerate present!”

This wouldn’t have been the end of my little speech, except that Bunny decided for us that it was the end. He slipped his fingers into my long hair—it had surely turned black again, for only that could justify how affectionately he touched it—and pressed his sweet lips desirously to mine, lovingly silencing me. He took my face in his hands, and poured his love into me, bravely letting none of his shyness come out to stop him.

A whimper escaped me. I was delighted, and relieved. It was a mind-numbing comfort to feel how touching me did give him joy after all. It was pure exhilaration and bliss to be made his. I longed for him to use me however he liked.

Gently, he pushed me to the bed, and readily I fell onto my back, yearning more than anything for him to make his will my mantle. He crawled on top of me, and kissed me further, nipping me delicately around my mouth and carefully exploring the feel of my mouth with his tongue. We were both still dressed to the nines, and still he gave no indication that he was about to undress us. He never did undress us, while I so fervently expected him to. Instead, he went on kissing me. He made heartrendingly innocent love to me, overwhelming me with the lightning of his fingertips’ sparks and the thunder of his own deep moans. 

In mind and in body, I was a spectacular mess. Every pore of my heated skin was suffused with his warmth. I ached to hear more of those precious moans of his. 

His resolute palms pressed mine into the bed to either side of me, pinning me outright. His knees were tight around my legs, intimate and secure. With all his body, he was holding onto me. “I love you,” he whispered sweetly.

“Take what you want from me,” I implored him, “please.”

Yet he shook his head. That baffling motion was his way of telling me that he was already taking what he wanted. “I love you,” he said again. He kissed me at my ears, at my neck, beneath my neck, all the spots in between. At intervals, his legs and arms moved restlessly, but only ever to caress my frame and to strengthen their grip on my limbs. His chest pressed me into his mattress. “I’m glad you liked the surprise,” he added quietly, while he interlocked our fingers.

I didn’t protest the point.

I never did find out for how long he kissed me. The experience was so divine that I lost all care for the ticking of the clock. He kept me there for an infinite space of time, basking in the taste of me and lifting my spirit with the same repeated words of love. He had found in him the resolution to reduce me into raw tenderness and sensation, and with a light heart I welcomed everything he did. In reality, he did very little to me physically; it was only kisses, soft touches, and a close embrace that we shared; even so, I was thrilled, and breathless, and overflowing with affection, and altogether counting myself unspeakably fortunate. 

Oh, and, not that it was important yet, but there were two very relevant details to my future artistic career that we both forgot about until well after we’d tumbled onto the sheets. The first problem was where I should establish my painting grounds; the second was the matter of my lacking proper inspiration to motivate me. While Bunny and I did work out an answer to the former problem together once our reason had returned to us, I felt inclined to keep my solution to the latter problem to myself; not forever, mind, but for the time being at least. That would do better to serve as my own tender secret, which would succeed his own. 

Even though it was probable that Bunny’s suggestion of looking upon Ham Common as the object to inspire me was a very sensible one, it was not any exalting image of our scenic home that was repeating itself like wallpaper in my mind’s eye. The inspiration that was insistently suggesting itself to me for my future artistic endeavours was a subject far more endearing to me. Before me was a subject a hundred times as handsome, pleasant, and gentle as anything to be found in nature. Ham Common might do as the scenery in the background, but as a foreground rival to my dearest, it never stood a chance.


	4. Lawn Bowls

Eventually, I did tell Bunny that I love him.

But one point, first, should be clarified: I was still not like Bunny, and would never be like him. It is the bodies we were born with to which I refer. In him, there is an earthy fancy for our own general side of the species. It is my understanding that both of the sexes have their attractions to him. This nature of his, while not the majority among the race, is not as rare as I once thought it to be. 

As for me, Providence saw fit to make that aspect of my soul so complicated and so unlike that of other men that, upon recognizing the discrepancy, I was sorely tempted to think of it as a divine retribution for those crimes of mine for which I was not already punished in some other way.

It was like this. Although Bunny had come to be so dear enough to me that I reached the decision to pass my life at his side in Ham Common for his sake, I did not recognize within me that hungry breed of desire until his own desire burned itself into me. It was certainly strong love that I’d had for him for years before, but that was only of a chaste kind—until it wasn’t chaste any longer.

Does that make sense? It is something in our emotional bond, and not appearance or gender or anything else, that has weight with me. As it is, even now, my devotion to Bunny feels only pure and platonic at times—until the moment he takes my hand, and bathes me in his tenderness and his own longing. And when that glorious moment of his love comes and the emotions pass between us like static electricity, and I can see the sweet fondness and want in his light-coloured eyes and hotly blushing features, and feel his tender and creative caresses along my ready skin, then—at that instant—then my mind and my body belong not to myself, but to Bunny; and that youthful illusion of the brave Don Juan that I long thought myself to disappear into a malleable, lovesick man hidden underneath. 

That is not to say that our relationship centres around what goes on in our bedrooms. I did not lose any part of that innocent raiment of commitment and trust that he had somehow induced me to don on the fated Ides of March, which was to never be removed, and which I may call friendship. That extreme and heavy sense of friendship persisted. Our intimate encounters bolstered that friendship, rather than overshadowing it.

But I am losing the thread of the important topic. It remains to be relayed how I came to feel free to outright confess my love to Bunny. 

As I’ve said, I hadn’t thought myself worthy of it for several months after we first came together in that quaint little home he’d made for us. It was Bunny himself who was goodhearted enough to persuade me that I had earned the right to say those three words to him. Let me give it a shot at an explanation. 

For the following story to make any sense, one should know beforehand that lawn bowls is a surprisingly temperamental sport, given its simplicity. Because it relies on the rolling and eventual settling of balls, a flat field is a necessary. Typically, the right green is only available at a club. As a rule, we had grown to be as contrary to clubs as they were contrary to us; it should have happened, therefore, that we would never play the game of bowls, except that some of our neighbours had a private stretch of turf in their backyard expressly for the purpose, and their friend Mrs Fisher was looking after their house while they were away for the holidays. 

We used the opportunity to have a crack at the setup, at the first sign of not-too-misty weather. It was easy for me to talk our generous landlady round to the idea. She was, in fact, our only audience while Bunny and I played singles.

It was our last bowl of one round of the game. I must have been winning overall, but our scores were of extremely little consequence to us. I stepped onto the mat and rolled the last of my four bowls down the rectangular patch of green. The weighted black orb curved artfully down the bowling green, and landed nearish the white jack that I was aiming for. 

“You know, you’re frightfully good at this, Mr Ralph,” our landlady said kindly from where she sat watching us from the small veranda of the house. “You, too, Mr Harry,” she added, for motherly fairness. “You might both come over more often, when all the men are around and having a ball of it.”

Even though this was very likely the closest I would ever come to slow-bowling again, it didn’t strike me as all that fascinating. And, while I supposed that it was a good enough way to the pass the time with Bunny and Mrs Fisher, I had not the least want of returning to bothersome society for its sake. “I fear that playing the game is not so pleasant a thing as wanting to play it,” I said. “I’m plainly not as fond of sport as I was when Harry and I were little troublemakers.”

Bunny smirked at the partial truth of my lie. “Why don’t you try the game for yourself, Mrs Fisher?” he asked, as he approached the mat and I gave him his room. He rolled his own final bowl, which fell short of the jack. Two of my four black bowls were closer to the jack than any of his own four blue ones, which ended the round by awarding me two additional points and leaving him at whatever his number was. 

“Oh, goodness no, not me,” she answered. “Anything I roll can only be counted on to end inches from the mat, or else in a ditch! And I’m finding it’s plenty fun from here, mind you.”

Bunny glanced at her. “Why is that?”

“I’ve often seen the men playing, but they’re never so easy about the game as you and Mr Ralph. Sure, the both of you have got that focused look that I’ve seen the men take on, but you don’t take none of it so personally like they do. It wouldn’t surprise me if neither of you knew what the score was!”

“Ah, did you hear that, Harry?” I said. “Our neighbours make for poor sportsmen.”

My dear friend grinned. “Or maybe we make for great sportsmen?”

“Great sportsmen? But, I daresay, no one can call himself that; a great sportsman would have to be humble, as well as the rest.”

I savoured with pleasure how he blushed at my teasing.

To apologize for it, I stepped up to give him a brotherly hug on the shoulder. “But I agree with you,” was my playful whisper to him. “In fact, I am of the opinion that one ought not to play a game unless one plays it with a mate whom one felt comfortable losing to.” 

My sweetly flustered rabbit could not be at all chagrined with me after that.

We recovered our bowls from the green. It was his turn to roll out the jack, so it was he who stood next on the mat, with that small white ball in his hand.

I was suddenly glad that we had come to Ham Common as a pair of brothers, or else I would have had to spare our landlady from this next admission of mine. But for years she had been the best of the few good people known to us, and I wanted her to be my witness if she could be. It would have been my preference to confess the depth of my honest feelings for my companion in her presence; however, I could not admit the truth of our love in front of her, unfortunately. Consequently, I decided to go about admitting what was close to the truth. “Harry, I don’t know if I’ve ever told you what I'm about to tell you, but I’m not ashamed to say it.” 

Stalling his roll, Bunny turned in mild surprise to me. His brow knitted slightly in concern. 

“Oh, I don't mean to worry you." I bent down a little to lightly kiss his cheek. “What I want to say is, if a man could marry his brother, then I would marry you.” 

My poor, dearest Bunny! He tried so very hard to effect a frown, falsely for the sake of our landlady and genuinely for the sentimental risk I had just taken—though I knew without a doubt that there was no real risk in it. “Ralph!” my man hissed, but with a self-defeating laugh. He was flustered. My foolish audacity had charmed him.

“The reasoning is quite clear,” I said. “If we were married, then henceforth I could live without fear that a wife will someday come to take away your good company from me.”

Between looking at me and our landlady, Bunny did not know what to say.

“Oh, don’t be so embarrassed,” our blessed landlady said. She was positively tickled pink by my hyperbolic remark of good fraternal feeling. “You two really are the most adorable things! It’s nice to see that brothers can still be so affectionate. I thought it had gone out of style!”

Her encouragement surprised and disarmed Bunny to his limit. He shook his head, and huffed his gentle heart out. “Oh, come here,” he murmured, and at last took me into a very welcome embrace.

When we separated, he rolled out the white ball that had remained in his grasp. It came to a stop at the far end of the green.

“You’ve given us quite the target to shoot for this time,” I said.

“I’m afraid the ball only ends up where it wants to,” Bunny replied.

“Dear me, what humility you have!” I cried. “You were right, old chap; we must be great sportsmen, indeed!”

It was with the most uncontainable and the most lovely smile that Bunny sighed on my account. All in that moment, he scoffed my absurdity, forgave it, and cherished it. I had a brief urge to pull up the first oils and canvas that I could lay my hands on and to make tangible for Bunny that calming beauty that he had no idea emanated from his happiness. I laughed for his delightful reaction, and then because of me he laughed, also. Our good landlady did not laugh, but half-heartedly tutted me for my unfairness. 

This was all pleasant in of itself. It was not much later, however, that our landlady retired, to leave us to our game. Before she could go, I feigned to remember at the last minute to ask her for the key to our neighbour’s residence, on the circumstance that Harry and I would need them to return the equipment to the house. I promised to lock up for her, and to return the key to her later. 

Directly she was gone, Bunny forgot about childish play and turned to me. He tried at a glance to figure out my game, for he already knew that I must have one in mind, while someone else’s key twirled round my finger. He knew me too well.

I smirked taciturnly in response to his unspoken question, concealing with my stoicism the ecstatic expectancy of what the sultry thing I had planned. “I have a splendid idea, Bunny.”

“You don’t intend to pick through the place?” It was plain that he wasn’t quite on board with that theory. Perhaps that was because these were our neighbours, and we were both characteristically averse to the notion of stealing from those few people who might be said to fall into the protected category of acquaintances and hosts. More likely, however, it was the potential betrayal of our dear landlady’s faith in us that piqued him, and I, too, would have been loathe to do wrong by her.

But he had nothing to fear on that account. No financial or profitable ventures were set to be on tap for us today. “No, my dear chap. This house can offer us something much better than its paltry haul things to be fenced. Follow me, and you will see what I mean.”

Undoubtedly, he had his misgivings. All the same, he was willing to follow my lead wherever I went, and as was typical he was the very soul of curiosity to know what my inexplicable manner was about. 

The key went in and out, and I entered the house as freely as if I owned it. My shoes were kicked off casually at the door; Bunny was loyal enough to followed my absurd example in even this. I had seen the inside of the place before, but in any case, one country home is much like another. There light enough through the windows, and with it to guide me I found the stairs and began the quick search for the best room in the house. There were three bedrooms in all; one was for children, one was for guests, and the last one, the overlord of the bedrooms, was home to my prize. I entered, stood before the large bed, and put my hands to my hips in satisfaction. 

Bunny was at my heel, and he looked in, trying to figure out what I had come in for. 

I welcome him into the room gracefully. “Don’t you see it?”

He looked around, and then shrugged helplessly. I had trained him too well; he was searching the room for suspicious wall-hangings or safes or locks to pick, and, like me, detected none of these things. “Well, I see a window, desks, a wardrobe, double bed—” 

“A double bed,” I repeated with a fast-growing grin. “A double bed! Fresh, and unoccupied!”

My companion’s reaction was above price. His brow frowned, as his jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

He was right. I wasn’t serious. There was something in this house that I had indeed come for, and it wasn’t the large bed, though it was similarly in this room, and plain as day for him to see. On the other hand, this splendid bed was double the size of the largest in our own home. If I would only secure one for our own rooms—but nothing as perfect as this expensive specimen would fit inside our bedrooms comfortably. I bent to feel along its heavy sheets, which were soft and sturdy, and begging to be rolled about in. “What do you think, Bunny?” I tossed myself onto the covers, fell onto my back, and laughed. “It’s a marvellous prize! We’ve never had a roll in one before!”

The precious fellow was beside himself with his familiar cross-blend of amusement and exasperation at my antics. “But—this is someone else’s bed. In someone else’s house!”

I stretched myself to the limit along the blanket and pillows. It was an indulgence of the supreme kind to lie in such a titan’s loft. “Not quite at this moment, it isn’t someone else’s. In fact, why shouldn’t we think of it as my little gift to you, if only for today?” I exaggerated a sigh of relaxation, hoping to tempt him to come to my side. “With me included, of course,” I added, with more suavity and villainy than what characterized the anxieties that were actually coursing through my veins. To make the thing stick, I pushed my bravery farther still and put on a slight suggestive pose. 

He blushed harshly. I think that my show of interest—my suggestive forwardness, which was unusual for me to adopt—must have pleased him. He was adorable as he sputtered, simpered, and stuttered his way through a reply. “There’s no way—we couldn’t!” He hesitated. “For one thing, we’d leave behind the worst mess!”

One playful finger tapped against my lips. “So we could do make use of the bed, if not for the mess?” I asked pointedly. “Dear me, there’s truth in that. I shouldn’t want to be so disrespectful to such a hospitable set of people.” Taking some pity on my closest friend, who seemed stuck between great fascination and greater incredulity, I let out a calm laugh and sat upright on the bed. “No, Bunny, it is all right. I am of the opinion that there is a cleaner use for this bedroom available to us—cleaner, I shouldn’t wonder, than the particular delight that you have in mind.”

“What do you mean?” Cautiously, he lowered his voice. “If it’s not what I’m thinking, then what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that all I want from this very excellent double bed is a good place to have a long kiss from you.”

His eyes widened prettily at the mere words of innocent intimacy. “That’s what this is about, then? A kiss?”

I laughed. “You jump ahead of me, old fellow! A kiss can certainly be part of the general plan, on the side,” I answered. “There can be no objection to the proposition? A kiss ought not to leave a mess, of course,” I reminded him, “unless we’re especially sloppy.”

The weak stab at airy humour produced the most timid of smiles from him.

I went after encouraging that smile for all I was worth. “I promise, I will tell you what this nonsense of mine is all about, after you join me and we waste a minute or two on this bed.” I extended a hand to him, palm up, beckoning him with greater deliberateness to join me. “If it would suit you to join me, that is.”

Slowly, his resistant bemusement and surprise faded. In their place, a soft smile grew. Before me, his heart melted. He crawled onto the bed, and made his way on all fours to me. “I suppose there’s no harm in a kiss,” he murmured back, and at once all my little thrust at romantic mastery was half-gone. The next moment, his smooth palm was caressing my face. His knees intertwined with mine. His heat and his aroma inundated my senses. His fingers tingled across my scalp. He leaned forward, and breathed my name, past my parted lips. 

I shuddered pleasantly. My thoughts went blank but for a want of him. This wasn’t at all part of my grand plan in waiting, but it was very appreciated anyway. My affection for him, until then childlike and simple, grew to be demanding and blistering. The sensations of contentment and excitement, which ought to have contradicted one another out of the picture, filled me in combination. I should clarify that this excitement was not of an urgent or dangerous nature; it was a calmer sentiment than that; it was a devout and enduring desire for Bunny to do whatever he wished with me. My rabbit held a hypnotic sort of power over me, one that was all the more potent for its gentleness.

His lips curved slowly along mine. Time slowed to a standstill, as his wet, warm mouth accustomed itself to me all over again. His kindness played along my tongue and past it, reaching down into me, pouring down my throat and into warm depths that only he knows how to reach.

The temptation to collapse beneath him was immense, yet I was determined to match his affection with my own on this rare occasion. In every other occasion I had determined to followed his lead; I had chosen to keep my own will and charisma in check, to trust him to show and teach me the ways of love and partnership in which he was master, and I was apprentice. I had left it to him to decide our course, to set our pace, and to discover his own confidence and self-worth in the process.

Today’s agenda, however, was special. Today, my plan was to repay him for what he had given me—for that easel, and all that it signified. Today, he was the one to be celebrated, and I was the one prepared to be the gift-giver. Tomorrow, he would be the leader again, and that was all the more apt because he was genuinely the more skilled and intuitive of the two of us in this area; but today, I had something to prove.

Before I was too far done for by his attentions, I remembered to rally myself. I kissed him more aggressively, growling, pushing myself more. Soon enough, it was I who was on top of him. (I found very quickly that the difference in our physiques gave me a physical advantage to this effect.) I felt along the length of his blazer, reverently down to his waistcoat, and along his ribs. Boldly, I stole my nose and lips away from his so that I could better shower my affections into the crook of his throat. I kissed below his jaw, and sucked at the soft skin where I would have tickled him into a giggle if I had touched him more lightly, hoping through it all that I was making no mistakes. I was relying upon all my faculties of courage and perception. It taxed me to my limit, and yet it was a devil of a rush. 

“AJ,” he moaned. The deep tone of his voice was richer than diamonds to me. Each of his harrowed breaths hit me like a gust enough to carry me away. His neck craned for me, inviting me to do my worst to his defenceless throat. His fingertips made strands of my long white hair. The pressure of his body all along mine was sweet and warm. The shape of his body was a hundred times finer than that of the double bed, good though that article was. 

The success of my boldness triggered in me a consuming rush of dominance. I was bent on giving him even more pleasure. Buried beneath my assumed habit of docility in our budding relationship was an intoxicating need to spoil and excite him. Despite my relative inexperience, I had picked up on enough from our time spent in each other’s arms to trust that I could be good for him. I undid his shirt and necktie, only so that I could get at more of his fine-textured skin, and release more of his musky scent. The thrill of passion was my guide. I kissed down him in ways that I could not myself predict. 

And not for an instant did I forget who it was I was ravenously giving pleasure to. I thought to myself about how my faithful, irreplaceable partner was inside this pale, pulsing body; this was his soft taste, and this was him shaking under my attention. Between chaste kisses and from a haze, I murmured, “Do you like this, Bunny?”

“I like everything you do to me,” he rasped in return.

I lifted myself up once more, to gaze down at his beautifully large eyes, his light hair, and his lighter whiskers. 

Bunny was breathtakingly amazed, and in wonder. 

I was in wonder, too.

“AJ,” he sighed, “I don’t mean to stop you, but please, let me tell you this. I really am happy, just to be with you.” There was a pause, while he weighed the merits of speaking against those of silence. “I feel like the luckiest man alive,” he said at last, “when you touch me like this—like I mean so much to you.” 

“Worlds, Bunny,” I assured him. “Worlds.” My feet fell into place beside his. My legs curved alongside the silky trousers on his, rising and falling against him in slow, languid patterns. His body shook with each exhale, until I took all the breath from him by kissing him on the mouth again. It was luxurious. Who knows for how many hours we might pass like this, with his hands in mine and his sweet, silky lips to mine?

Bunny looked up at me through a thick, wet film of sparkling stars. “I love you.” Coming from him, the words were a god’s lullaby. His gentle melody cutting through the gravel of the earth.

My chest seized intensely. Unsure of what to say, and not knowing what would come out of me, I began, “Bunny—”

A passionate fire sparked abruptly inside him. “Never mind what I said before, AJ,” he said, “let’s use this bed. Right here, in this house. If you say that you want me, then, by Jove, I don’t see any reason not. I’m all yours!” The enthusiasm in his awe-ridden face made for a cheerfully bright top to his body. A flame at the crown of a candle could not be brighter. 

His very interesting declaration gave me pause. The change in subject derailed me easily from my planned tracks. “You mean to say—in this bed?”

“Yes, this very bed, this very minute!”

“Ah,” I hesitated, “but then what about the mess you very prudently didn’t wish to leave behind?”

It was perfectly priceless, the agonized look he gave me. On the subject of defiling the bed of our neighbours, his outlook had flipped entirely, and he was aware of how it must have seemed. “I changed my mind. We can clean up after ourselves. No one will ever know.”

His enthusiasm was captivating, and truthfully I longed to hear more of it, but I had a very different track in mind for us. “No, Bunny; forgive me, but there is something else that must be done first.”

“Ah, look, you’re at it again with me!” he cried, to my astonishment. “I tell you that I won’t do a thing, and you agree not to do it, until you find some clever way to compels me to want to do the thing more and more, until at last I come round to it myself, and then you are the one protesting me!” He poked my jacket, with what I imagine was supposed to be a petulant manner. Yet, far from offending me, his charmed prodding only endeared him to me all the more. “Why, you do it on purpose.”

This was a very unexpected, but a valid and old, accusation. His eloquent frankness compelled me to chuckle despite myself. “Yes, that is a bad habit of mine,” I admitted. “Even so, that’s not my angle tonight. It was genuine that I never meant for us to do anything risqué. A little innocent fun, at the expense of friends whom we’ve never met; nothing more, while we’ve got their rooms. Look, I’ll show you exactly what I’ve been planning. Unless,” I tested the unsettled waters, “you’d rather we stay in bed, and enjoy some fun that is less innocent?”

A burst of a laugh escaped him. “No, no,” he gave in, “I’m too curious to hear what you’re up to.” His fingers found mine, interlocking as they had done in front of the pond not long ago. “What does it matter what we’re doing, anyway? As long as I’m with you.”

I sank my nose down to his throat, and breathed in his scent. “Nothing else matters,” I agreed. His blanketing fingers were quickly captured by my own. They were sweetly soft and yielding to my grasp. I delayed half a minute longer in this way, merely soaking him in.

“AJ,” he recalled me, after an age. 

“Oh, yes, yes; the thing I have to show you.” I stepped off of the bed. It’s time to show you what I came in here for. It’s in the larger dressing-cupboard, over there.”

Bunny couldn’t resist smiling.

“Ah, I know what you are thinking! No, you haven’t given me a mania for finding out what’s in every wardrobe in England. Besides, we can already see exactly what’s in this one.”

Two small wooden doors had indeed been open since our entry into the room. The man’s dressing-cupboard was closed; it was the woman’s that had doors wide open. There were dresses, skirts, and undergarments. Some hats were piled within a shelf built into the top. There was nothing particularly noteworthy to be seen. No sheets hung from any of its corners to safeguard any hidden easels. 

I spoke exceedingly calmly. My practiced composure was performing at its highest form. “What do you think of it, Bunny? Anything worth the taking?”

Bunny glanced at me. Then, seeing that I was not to be helpful (unless the view of laughing eyes and crossed arms was helpful to him) he devoted his attention to thumbing through the lady’s articles on display. “What am I looking for—?” He gasped. “Oh!” 

My heart leapt in its cavity. “Yes?”

During a stretch of seconds that lasted forever through the lens of my concealed anticipation, he took it out and gazed upon every inch of it: a fashionable feathered, laced, wide-brimmed, feminine specimen. He was perfectly pale, and speechless. Much as I had predicted, he had recognized the hat immediately.

Keeping my cool, I approached him easily. “Let me help you with that.”

“This hat,” he murmured, “are we—are we taking it?”

“Taking this? No, not from these good people. Didn’t you hear me when I told her before, that we only wish to borrow it?” I cajoled the hat from his shaking fingertips. “I’m sure the lady in possession of this hat will not mind lending it to us, until we tire of it.” With care, I placed the hat onto the sacred ground of his hair. 

His eyes raised to the brim of the hat, Bunny reverently touched its delicate ends. 

I took a hand mirror from the lady’s desk, and held it up to him vision. “See, a perfect fit! That’s good; it might have been too big, and then it would have needed a rag or two shoved into it. I would have been been reluctant to stuff any old rags into a hat of yours.”

Bunny glanced from between me and the mirror. 

“Oh, and let’s not forget the body.” I dug through the clothes, and pulled out a conservative-style, blue dress of great length and greater volume, to surrender into his confused arms. “I’ve already had a look through the rest, and trust me when I tell you that this set is the only she left behind for us that was adequate. It’s a bit out of season, I’ll grant you, but not as worn or as drab as the other dresses that didn’t pass the holiday cut. A hat of this style really won’t go with your tailcoat, either; I’m afraid we’ll have to borrow this dress along with the hat. Hold it to yourself, like this,” I directed him to pose with the dress, “there, that will look splendid on you when you put it on. What do you think?” Again, I showed him the mirror. “A consummate Venus,” I declared vehemently, “fit to inspire the stroke of my brush!”

His stance quavered. His lip was trembling. His self-control had slipped away. His half-apprehensive, half-thrilled eyes had widened, shimmering with a wet sheen.

I cleared my throat. “A shave might be called for,” I said, a little too loudly, “to bring off the full effect, though that’s a decision not for me to make. I know how long you’ve worked at the fine piece on your upper lip.” I thought to pass the mirror to him to illustrate the point. On the other hand, he seemed to be in a state for dropping things rather than holding them, so I continued to hold it for him. “Although, if you did want a shave, the host was good enough to leave a shaving kit around here. I wouldn’t mind doing it for you, if you’ll be good enough to trust me with a blade at your neck.”

At this, he cracked the tiniest smile.

I pounced on it like a tiger. “The woman has some face powder and colouring here, also! And there’s plenty of it to go around. Though, in all honesty, I thought that her stick of rouge was not at all suitable for you. Too brassy, I shouldn’t wonder. Not at all suitable. For your lips,” I picked out a stick from the woman’s desk that I had purchased not two days ago on the asserted premise that it was for a sister’s birthday, “I found a milder pink. A gentle shade, I’d call it, for a very gentle lady.”

Two gleaming eyes pinned me from within a whirlpool of shock and astonishment. Something about this commonplace tube of lipstick was the little straw that broke him at last. Bunny crumbled like the dress that he was squeezing in an anxious grip. That blamelessly fashionable and modest dress went under his arm, because he couldn’t hold it any longer; his other arm came up to smother the weeping that had begun in great force. 

Truth be told, I hadn’t been expecting such a reaction. 

He tried to stifle his tears at first, but it was no good. He laughed at himself while he cried, too; for what reason, I could only guess. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled into his sleeve, trying to hide his convulsive tears.

“Bunny!” It was the work of a moment to take him flush into my arms. If he wished to cry, I thought fiercely to myself, let him cry on me. Even though I did not understand why this gift of mine (if it could be called a gift) meant so much to him that he should cry over it, I was greedily glad that it had. In any case, it would make what I was about the say all the more wonderfully dramatic. “Bunny,” I whispered, “it’s all right.”

His nod was soft against me. 

My arms wound about him more tightly. “I’ve always liked how you looked in a dapper tailcoat, Bunny,” I assured him, “but what a delicious change it will be, to see you turn into a divine beauty.” 

“AJ,” he groaned between sobs, “thank you.” My heartbeat skipped past its station. 

When he had recovered enough to breathe properly again, I brought him to sit beside me on the bed. Still, we were in an unbreakable embrace, me hoarding him and his body all to myself. I rubbed his back, to soothe him. “It was my turn to give you something to be a joy to you, wouldn’t you say so?”

With innocent good cheer he laughed at my allusion to his own speech. He sank deeper into my hug. “Thank you, so much, for this, this—”

“No need to thank me.” 

He sniffled. “But, I ought to this. This is—this is—why a dress? Why—”

“Whatever question you ask me,” I said, “I have only one answer to give. Do you want to hear me say it?” My arms were wrapped around him; my head rested next to his. I was eminently comfortable like this, and I hoped that he was, too. “Bunny—it’s because I love you.”

How he shook next to me on the large bed, body and soul! Whether or not I had earned the right to admit love to him, I would never bring myself to regret it. His mood rose to euphoric heights. He hugged me as devotedly as I hugged him, and the sobs that moved his shoulders resounded musically through the house. I couldn’t contain a smile that was awfully wide. To everyone else, I was an ill-famed villain, and proud to be it; but, in the story of Bunny’s life, it seemed that I must have managed some good.

Friend to friend, and lover to lover, we embraced one another. My feelings for him had grown so drastically since that fateful Ides we’d first joined hands; I had grown, too, to be better than I was, as an unavoidable consequence of his faith and his love. I was not ashamed of Bunny, be him masculine or effeminate, or some unnameable combination thereof. I was proud of him, and I rejoiced at being his paramour. The Greek vice was not at all a vice, as we practiced it; it was pure friendship, one of the highest order.

Before long, he asked me, in a delicately pretty and inoffensive manner, his throat not yet clear of its emotional clog, “You offered me a shave?”

I smirked into his cheek. Yes, I did offer him that.


	5. Portraiture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much inspiration for this chapter was taken from [this pretty picture](http://graphiteeater.tumblr.com/post/161680045165/riv-raff-bunny-manders-the-glamorous-muse-aj) by [graphiteeater](https://graphiteeater.tumblr.com).

Remember how I mentioned that Bunny and I discussed where I ought to go about my painting business? The possibility of painting outside immediately found favour with me, yet I didn’t bother to pursue that fantastic line, because the winter weather wasn’t all for it. Bunny, in his infinite goodness, had an idea about transforming his bedroom into a studio for me, but I wouldn’t let him give it up his little sanctuary for my sake. I asked to take over the parlour instead, which we never used, for the very obvious reason that we never had any guests call upon us in our hideaway home. 

This was to lay the foundation for the following day, which we spent rearranging the furniture and moving everything about until he was satisfied that I was satisfied that I had a facilitating place to work.

There was only one subject whom I wished to make a representation of. Before I could do him justice, however, serious practice was wanted. It had been a considerable time since my artistic days at school, and I was in need of picking up the old ways again. So, I started with less attractive models, at a small scale. I drew lamps and books. 

I didn’t paint every day. My habits were predictably sporadic. Sometimes I was at feverish work for hours at a time, and sometimes I would absolutely refuse to look at another drop of oil. I was a stickler for drawing when there was accommodating sunlight, too, from the window that I kept perpetually cracked open to air the room out. When the artistic mood did suit me and the lighting was indeed conducive, however, to take up the brush was a pleasant experience. I enjoyed the creaminess and colourfulness of the medium. The unique smells of the oils became synonymous inside my mind with art itself. The absurdly long drying time of the paint spurred me to continue on a single piece for days (and weeks) while I pursued a fussy care for its fine details. I often lost track of time while I was in the parlour. In no time, my paint and turpentine had ruined all our rags, requiring a turnover by Bunny in town that also happened to double their number.

It was not that I wanted to make a profession of the hobby, as Bunny had made of his own. Despite the value I placed on drafting and blending each painting until I could only harm it by doing anything more, there was no appeal for me in professionalism. For once more in my life, I was a true amateur.

The only drawback from this revived pastime was that I should be away from my friend, alone with my canvas amidst my battlefield of newspapers to protect the floor of the flat. We were already accustomed to periods of silence between us, particularly while we read or wrote, but at least we had often remained in close proximity. I won’t say I don’t benefit by some alone time every now and then, but to be apart from him for so long was not good for me. Therefore, more than once I abandoned my work for the sake of being near him. He as well, on his own accord, often came by to talk to me, while my sleeves were rolled up and my eyes were fixed in a line that ran from palette to fabric.

Finally, though I wasn’t as ready as I should have liked to be, my impatience won out. I wanted to draw my inspiration. I arranged for our outing to find the costume that my model would wear for his pose. It only took a few inquiries around the neighbourhood (that would be Mrs Fisher, who, by the by, was fond enough of me to let me get away with turning one of our rooms into an artist’s den) to discover that the lady whose hat had so suited Bunny happened to live in the next house over. I easily guessed the combination to the number lock at the back of the house (it was an anniversary) and was very pleased to discover that the lady had generously left some belongings behind for us to use.

Via the excuse of the want of a game of lawn bowls, I’d brought Bunny over, and when the timing was good I’d escorted him up the house to see the costume for himself. Thereafter, we locked up and made our way back to our modest little abode—minus a gentleman’s tweed suit, cap, and moustache, and plus a lady’s hat, dress, and make-up. We could have taken the suit and cap with us, if we’d cared, but it was much easier to leave it behind, until it was wanted again; therefore, we shared the great entertainment of putting the set up as collateral for loan of the lady’s clothing. It was a shame that she hadn’t had a single wig for us to take, too—her collection only had darkish, homemade false locks for adorning the castles of hair which were in vogue—but I puffed up his hair so that the front might resemble a woman’s front, and let his hat cover the back.

Arm in arm as of old, as the sun was falling away, I walked him down the short walk of the street in his full rig. It was a small walk, which was good, since it served as his dress rehearsal for wearing lady’s clothing outside. He was beautiful. His refined figure and gait matched the fine harmony of the common.

He was in near-fits for half the journey. It was hard for him to believe that I was taking this as seriously as I really was. About a quarter of the way through, he thanked me again for the encouragement I had given him.

“Oh, it’s not a hardship,” I replied. Sneakily, I stole my arm back, so that I could snake it around his the rim of the skirt encircling his waist, pulling him slightly to me. “In fact, I’m enjoying this a great deal.”

It was outrageously forward of me, and he was rightly scandalized by my tug at his body. “AJ!”

“Can’t an Englishman be affectionate with his sister in this day and age?”

“Not this affectionate!” he giggled. “And I am not your sister.”

“Then it is fortunate that no one is around to see us.” 

“AJ, really!” 

“Very well, have it your way.” I returned my arm into his. Belatedly, it occurred to me that it might be kind to slow my walking pace. The excitement must have been getting to me. “How are you holding up in that?” I inquired lightly. “It’s not too tight a fit, is it?”

My concern was not needed. Whether as an effect of his small size or of his eagerness, the dress might as well have been made for him for all the ease he displayed in wearing it. “Oh, no. It’s not any tighter than a well-tailored suit,” he said cheerfully. 

It was the wrong month for roses, or I would have plucked a couple of choice roses from our yard to tuck into the outer lining of his new hat. I did eye the pansies, but they weren’t worth leaving Bunny’s side for.  
When we were safely home, I removed my jacket and waistcoat, but he didn’t change out of his clothes. It was a good thing that evening was at hand, or the temptation to ask him to model right away might have got the best of me. Better to let him grow accustomed to it, first; better for him to first become convinced of my complete acceptance of him.

Briefly we stood together, in our foyer, my hands on his rib and waist, my lips pecking at his powdered forehead, indulging like a wicked glutton in the princely experience of embarrassing him with excessive attention. “How do you feel?”

“Oh, um.” Unlike my rough counterpart, his voice has been of a high, smooth tone since he was a lad. It wasn’t at a woman’s pitch, but neither was it so out of place a feature in his feminine guise. “Pretty, if that’s the right word.” 

“It’s a very fine word.” Though I was glad to hear it, I liked to believe that some of that feeling of prettiness also came from how I was caressing him.

He brightened. “What about you? How do you feel?”

“Me?”

“Yes, I do mean you.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Intrigued? Fascinated?” Then, clarity came to me. I smiled. “Satisfied.”

A cute shyness compelled him to blink twice at my choice. “Why satisfied?”

I wasn’t exactly sure. “Ah, who knows? Satisfied with many things, I suppose.” Unable to explain myself any better through words, but wishing to give him something better, I opted instead for physical communication. I pulled him close to me, welcoming him closely into the crooks of my elbows.

Immediately his head nestled into the nape of my neck. Through the silky texture of his dress, I lazily stroked his shoulders and his sides. I willed that he might feel from my touch how sweet and handsome I thought him to be. As I breathed him in through my own skin and heard him quietly sigh his happiness and relief, I was satisfied in a way that I couldn’t articulate.

We kept the lady’s wearables for a week and a half. I had helped him into the rig the first time, and was elated to be welcomed to help him thereafter. Although, he didn’t need any help from me, besides for wanting another set of hands and eyes to do up the back of the top. It was not a consequence of any requirement for assistance, but of his generosity, that he allowed me to touch up his hair and straighten his skirts. 

One morning, he had the unthinking audacity to remark, “I was sorry to have to turn you down before, when you asked to dress me, and there were painting materials hidden amongst my clothes.” He was all smiles while he held out his arms for me to drape his puffed sleeves across. “Does this make up for it?”

My pulse fluttered. He hadn’t forgotten that insignificant episode? Dumbfounded and foolishly slack-jawed at his unwavering consideration of me, I could only manage a nod as an answer to his naive, kindly simper.

The dress itself was a pale and unassuming piece, closer in its appearance to the mysterious powder blue of a natural pond than the rude cobalt of a clear sky. The front of the gown was ruffled, and too temperate in temperament to allow any hint of clavicle to show. The corset and bustle hidden underneath accentuated the bust, waist, and hindquarters quite admirably, giving him the shape of a bell, if not exactly the hourglass of the modern ideal. The sleeves of the forearms were slim, contrasted by the inflation of the round shoulders; and the subtle collar of the shirt blended in with the fine silhouette of his throat. The underskirts beneath the main canopy over his legs were the colour of the wearer’s pale skin. The bottom of his swaying skirts marked a coquettish end to the dress, veiling his lower body to the tips of his shoes. To the touch and to the eyes, the rig was a large bedspread, soft and heavy, boasting volume and frilly edges that were not contrary to its softness. 

His shoes, by the by, were court shoes that matched the dress and hat in both colour and style; each sported a decorative bow, and advantaged their eager wearer by two inches. The learning curve of wearing these shoes was the motivation for my slowing my pace for him late into our walk home before; yet by the end of the dress’s second showing I realized that to make allowances for his new footwear was not necessary. The court shoes were as welcomed by his feet as were his slippers.

There was rouge at his lips, and a hint of pink for the sides of his face, and white powder everywhere that was hardly needed. All of these adornments were expertly understated. Like other respectable ladies, he could pretend be had been born with features as flawless as those of a marble statue—not painted on, as they really were, by us together. 

With respect to my other painting, I let him choose the pose for the painting that I demanded he sit for. 

The voluptuous skirts of his costume limited his options. He tried to lay down along a matt, but I had no stage to raise him up. I brought in a folding chair for him, yet it proved a comical match for the regality of his dress and bearing. I had half a mind to mention how he could model for me a more risqué position of his very pleasing form, when I had an idea of a posture he might easily assume for countless hours. 

“I ought to draw you while you write,” I said suddenly. 

He put a curious finger to his chin. “At my desk?”

It hardly mattered to me where he wrote, as long as he was comfortable. “We can move your desk into this room, if you like it, or you can write on a notepad. It’ll have the advantage of efficiency, in one respect; I’ll be painting while you’re writing, and neither of us will have to give up one another’s company in the process.” 

“That does sound quite nice.”

“It’ll be accurate, too. You are a writer. What sort of thing are you working on nowadays, anyway?”

“Oh,” he humbly dismissed his passion in as casual a manner as he could, “it’s nothing special.”

Spurred like a kicked horse, I effected a purposeful stride out of the parlour over to his writing desk. Just as I often left my books opened to the last page read, so too did he tend to neglect to tidy up after himself. He had left the bearers of his pencil’s scratches in disarray. Taking care not to damage any of the precious drafts, I lifted one up; in doing so, I avoided offending the writer’s sense of privacy by averting my eyes from what was written on it. It was not for no reason that he trusted that he could leave his unfinished, unconcealed drafts at his desk in our shared flat. “What is this one about, pray tell, if that’s not asking too much of a work in progress? Is it another serial of a scandalously modern Australian lady throwing chaos into the daily order of some conservative English family, possibly?”

He had traced my footsteps automatically. There was no escape for him from my interest in his work at the moment, however much he shied at my interest in his creations. “That one concerns a modern English lady,” he confessed, with a note which was the opposite of enthusiasm, “who scandalizes a conservative Australian family.”

I was fond of the piece already. “Capital! Chock-full of romance and self-sacrifice, too, no doubt, as is your wont. Have you got an ending for it already?”

My small praise for his efforts pleased him immensely. “Yes, I generally start by having one.” 

“Then, seeing as how you’ve got a basic outline to go on, you could suffer the distraction I’ll pose to you by keeping my eyes on your lovely self while you flesh out your writing?”

He huffed good-naturedly at me. “Yes, I think that will be all right, though I can’t imagine how a portrait of a writer at work will be of interest.”

“Leave that to me. It will capture you splendidly. However, it is a thing for you and me alone. I doubt if I could ever show any sketch I make of you to anyone else, dress or no dress.”

His eyebrows jumped. “No one? Not even to Mrs Fisher? She’ll want to see something you finish, one of these days.”

“No,” I said gravely, “not even to her.”

“But why do you say that?”

“Why, because I’m going to paint my own Dorian Gray.” The tale I was referencing may have been fictitious and a touch absurd, but I was quite serious. “What I mean is that there will be too much of myself in my work for it to ever be safe for public consumption. Isn’t that what the artist in that story said, when he’d painted a portrait of the fellow his heart belonged to? He said that he couldn’t exhibit his revealing masterpiece, for fear his secret of secrets would get out. I think that I understand his dilemma, now. Anyone who takes two looks at any painting I render of you will be able to guess what you mean to me.”

My dear Bunny was all patience and sweetness. “AJ, that is kind of you to say, but that is also paranoia. What you’re talking about is fiction. No real person will deduce anything from a portrait.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I am certain, because I’ve written plenty about you, and I put all of myself into my sketches of you, and even though there was not a single lie in it, not once did anyone ever guess at the truth of my feelings.”

That was a brilliant counter, demurely spoken and yet subtly loaded with his unconditional love. I reeled.

My sharp reaction alarmed him. “Oh! Don’t mind it!” He waved his hands in apology. “I’m not a fool. I’m sure that I never put anything on paper that was conclusive.”

“And to think,” I muttered, “I had supposed you’d written up our adventures for the pay’s sake.”

He blushed. “But that is right. I was paid for those articles!” If this insisted aside was supposed to deter me, it did not succeed. 

“When I met your editor a few years ago,” I went on, “he gave me to understand that your Raffles stories were your bestsellers. But I was never unduly vain about that, I assure you; for it was always clear that it was your own affected prose and style that sold you. Now, I know why. There’s too much of yourself—of your soul—in the portraits you make of me.” I laughed. “No, Bunny! I’m even less eager to share any paintings now. I’ve nothing at all against what you make me; I’m very proud of your work, in fact; but at the present, I don’t wish to have my love for you exhibited before the world. However I paint you will be for you to enjoy, and you only.”

“Yet you agree that no one has seen through my writing?”

“Perhaps, though there’s no guarantee that someone won’t, and it wouldn’t take a great mind to put two and two together, when comparing my art and your writing side by side. On the other hand, our landlady has been very good to us. She’ll be tickled pink when I ask her to sit for a portrait, and when I’ve finished with it she will be very free to show it off to whichever of her friends and loved ones will look upon it.”

“What if I asked for an illustration or two from you? Would that be too private to share, also?”

The suggestion was so novel and unexpected that it turned my thoughts completely around. A literary partnership—it seemed quaint, and entirely too fanciful to come true. “Illustrations? As companions to your records of our adventures?”

“Why, yes!” Enthusiasm heaved through him like a breath of fresh air. He was radiantly animated by an idea that seemed to me to be a bit too extraordinary. “It is grand merely to think about! Isn’t it a funny thing to happen? The illustrations, to be done by the main character!”

I couldn’t avoid being infected by his rampant glee, but I refused to alter my position. “When the main character is officially at the bottom of the sea?” I retorted brazenly. “No, no, I couldn’t possibly. Even if only you know the truth of my identity and I do the work under a pseudonym, it would be laughably vain indeed of me to draw so many self-portraits for profit, and of course my concerns about drawing you remain—and, what’s more, I’m only an amateur. I have yet to recover all my old skill in oils. I was never amply first-rate to begin with. In this area, it was never my hope to be like the professors.”

“Professors!” Bunny giggled at my evidently undying gripe against any honest work that lacked a sporting thrill. “Well, then, maybe I will have to ask you again later, when you’ve changed your mind!”

I humphed extravagantly. “I certainly don’t intend to do so!” It was a disastrously ineffective move, and I swiftly fell apart under the flood of his good mood that filled our rooms. We laughed in a shared uproar, not caring at all whose prediction of the future would be the one to come true. 

From his desk, Bunny took a journal and his chair. Each of these under one arm, he settled them and himself in at the centre of my little studio. I gave him an extra cushion to sit atop of, and otherwise remained on my feet to prepare a fresh canvas. He sat carefully, letting the fullness of his skirts bloom underneath and around him. There was only a second’s long delay before he set his pencil to paper, and the quiet force of his own concentration consumed him.

I took up my own pencil, used to create starting outlines of my own invention before the oil could have its turn. Out of a mixture of affection and boredom, I’ve studied him while he was at his desk from afar before, but never did I have such a bold chance as this to watch him write from an artistic angle. His wide-brimmed, feather-tipped hat tilted down with his smooth, boyish face. Those singular nerves of his, which hadn’t shaken my house of cards, did not now shake the knee-borne journal which formed a small part of my subject. 

“Bunny,” I said.

He looked up. “What is it?”

What did I want to say to him? I tipped my head. “Nothing, except,” I hesitated, trying to come up with something to justify the interruption, but all I wanted to say was, “I love you.” 

He smiled beautifully. “I love you, too, AJ.”

A magic spell was put upon me. His gentle words warmed me all over. They left in their wake a familiar, addictive warmth, lovely and satisfying, like the inhale of a Sullivan, if I could be forgiven for drawing such a vulgar comparison between my lowest habit and my best. 

My inspiration watched me a moment longer, and then proceeded to go on writing his greatest work yet. As I had done in the realm of romance, in this realm of art, too, I endeavoured to follow his example.

End.


End file.
